Edward Scissorhands
Composite Score: 81.87
Starring: Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne West, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Robert Oliveri, Dick Anthony Williams, O-Lan Jones, Vincent Price, and Alan Arkin
Director: Tim Burton
Writers: Tim Burton and Caroline Thompson
Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Holiday
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Box Office: $86.02 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Edward Scissorhands is Tim Burton’s film about a manufactured man who brings radical change to a suburban neighborhood, falls in love, and is eventually ousted from the very community that had accepted him. It has notes of satire, romance, holiday, and a macabre horror environment that all blend together into a highly unique film that continues in its popularity through the modern day (see the Super Bowl spot for Cadillac with Timothee Chalamet as “Edgar Scissorhands”). The film’s uniqueness brings with it an air of charm that makes the film’s otherwise terrifying protagonist into its most sympathetic figure. It plays on the tropes of suburbia (aloof parents, bored housewives, distrust of and fascination with “the other”, etc.) and the tropes of horror (haunted houses, disfigured pale guys, mad scientists, etc.) on its way to becoming a film that is neither a suburban satire nor a horror film. That step outside of genre is perhaps what makes Edward Scissorhands so great and a film that people continue returning to time and again.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
The aspects that make Edward Scissorhands unique and enjoyable also have the potential to make it a frustrating watch. By not going full-on satire (a la Pleasantville) or full-on horror (like The Stepford Wives), the film’s overall messaging becomes somewhat watered down. Is it about acceptance? Is it about being yourself? Is it about loving who you want regardless of what society says? Is it about rejecting society’s standards of beauty in favor of your own? Is it about embracing the disabled people in our lives? Is it some mix of those or none at all? It becomes hard to pin down the point of Edward Scissorhands upon reflection. Perhaps Burton’s emphasis on aesthetic left a little to be desired thematically, or maybe we’ve just moved beyond the relevance of whatever it is that he was trying to say in 1990.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
For all of its thematic struggles, Edward Scissorhands is a visual masterpiece. The set and production design on this film create the perfect suburban fantasy world against which to cast this convoluted story of acceptance and rejection. The colors, shapes, and even sizes of the different houses and rooms and props lend a paradoxical air of familiarity and fantasy to the world of the film. From the perfect rows of pastel-colored houses to the massive, gray, empty estate of Edward’s inventor, each set is intentionally designed to help set the film’s atmosphere. The various topiaries and not-quite-appropriately-sized furniture only add to this fantasy atmosphere, bringing with them a sense of absurdity in the midst of the familiar fantasy. It looks great!
The open-ended nature of the film’s overall message creates a set of positive themes for this film to offer to its audience – the rejection of conformity, embracing uniqueness, and the capability of everyone to receive love being the most prevalent. Johnny Depp’s Edward is undoubtedly a frightful character with his pale skin and hands made from remarkably sharp scissors, but Peg (Dianne West) and her family (Alan Arkin, Robert Oliveri, and Winona Ryder) fully accept him into their home without much resistance. The fictional community of the film is at its best when Edward thrives and lives amongst them at peace, bringing unique landscaping, grooming, and hairstyles to the people of the suburbs, helping to accent their individuality; however, within this is the tragedy of rejection that inevitably comes when one disgruntled teen (Anthony Michael Hall) begins calling out his strangeness to the others of the community. The romance between Kim and Edward might be a slightly odd pairing, but it speaks to Edward’s completeness as a person and lends to the film’s acceptance of “disabled” people as people who in fact have nothing wrong with them at all, moving toward the more modern conception of differently abled instead.
Positivity through acceptance, love, and uniqueness pairs well with Edward Scissorhands’s aesthetically pleasing production design to create a film that fits the bill of Greatness. Its lack of coherent theme/message does little to detract from what is in fact a delightfully wholesome film about a guy who was made in a lab and has scissors for hands becoming a part of a family and falling in love with a young Winona Ryder. It is easy to see why it became a cult classic and remains one of the Greatest Films of All Time.
