Psycho's Movie Reviews #170: Edward Scissorhands (1990)

Edward Scissorhands is a 1990 American fantasy romance film[4] directed by Tim Burton. It was produced by Burton and Denise Di Novi, and written by Caroline Thompson from a story by her and Burton. Johnny Depp plays an artificial humanoid named Edward, an unfinished creation who has scissor blades instead of hands. The young man is taken in by a suburban family and falls in love with their teenage daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder). Additional roles were played by Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, and Alan Arkin.

Burton conceived Edward Scissorhands from his childhood upbringing in suburban Burbank, California. During pre-production of Beetlejuice, Caroline Thompson was hired to adapt Burton's story into a screenplay, and the film began development at 20th Century Fox, after Warner Bros. declined. Edward Scissorhands was then fast tracked after Burton's critical and financial success with Batman. The majority of filming took place in Lutz, Florida between March 26 and July 19, 1990. The film also marks the fourth collaboration between Burton and film score composer Danny Elfman. The leading role of Edward had been connected to several actors prior to Depp's casting: a meeting between Burton and the preferred choice of the studio, Tom Cruise, was not fruitful, and Tom Hanks and Gary Oldman turned down the part. The character of The Inventor was devised specifically for Price, and would be his last major role. Edward's scissor hands were created and designed by Stan Winston.

Edward Scissorhands was released to a positive reception from critics and was a financial success, grossing over four times its $20 million budget. The film received numerous nominations at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, and the Saturn Awards, as well as winning the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Both Burton and Elfman consider Edward Scissorhands their most personal and favourite work.

Plot

One evening, an elderly woman tells her granddaughter the bedtime story of a young man named Edward who has scissor blades for hands.

The creation of an old inventor, Edward is a humanoid who is almost completed. The Inventor homeschool's Edward, but suffers a heart attack and dies before giving Edward real hands, leaving him permanently "unfinished".

Many years later, Peg Boggs, a local door-to-door Avon saleswoman, tries to sell at the decrepit Gothic mansion where Edward lives. She finds him alone and offers to take him to her home after discovering he is virtually harmless. Peg introduces Edward to her husband Bill, their young son Kevin and their teenage daughter Kim. Edward falls in love with Kim, despite her initial fear of him. As their neighbours are curious about the new houseguest, the Boggs throw a neighbourhood barbecue welcoming him. Most of the neighbours are fascinated by Edward and befriend him, except for the eccentric religious fanatic Esmeralda, and Kim's boyfriend, Jim.

Edward repays the neighbourhood for their kindness by trimming their hedges into topiaries, progressing to grooming dogs and later styling the hair of the neighbourhood women. One of the neighbours, Joyce, offers to help Edward open a hair salon. While scouting a location, Joyce attempts to seduce him, but scares him away. Joyce lies to the neighbourhood women about it, reducing their trust in him. The bank denies Edward a loan as he does not have a background or financial history.

Jealous of Kim's attraction to Edward, Jim suggests Edward pick the lock on his parents' home to obtain a van for Jim and Kim. Edward agrees, but when he picks the lock, a burglar alarm is triggered. Jim flees and Edward is arrested. The police determine that a lifetime of isolation has left Edward without any sense of reality or common sense. Edward takes responsibility for the robbery, telling Kim he did it because she asked him to. Consequently, he is shunned by the entire neighbourhood, except for the Boggs family.

At Christmas, Edward carves an angelic ice sculpture modelled after Kim; the ice shavings are thrown into the air and fall like snow, a rarity for the neighbourhood. Kim dances in the snowfall. Jim arrives suddenly, calling out to Edward, surprising him and causing him to accidentally cut Kim's hand. Jim accuses Edward of intentionally harming her, but Kim, disgusted with Jim's behaviour, breaks up with him. Meanwhile, Edward flees in a rage, destroying his works and scaring Esmeralda until he is calmed by a wandering dog.

Kim's parents go out to find Edward while she stays behind in case he returns. Edward returns, finding Kim there. She asks him to hold her, but Edward hesitates, afraid of hurting her. Jim drives around in a drunken rage and nearly runs over Kevin, but Edward pushes Kevin to safety, inadvertently cutting him. Witnesses accuse Edward of attacking Kevin; when Jim assaults him, Edward defends himself, cutting Jim's arm before fleeing to his mansion.

Kim races after Edward, while Jim obtains a handgun and follows Kim. In the mansion, Jim ambushes Edward and fights with him; Edward refuses to fight back until he sees Jim slap Kim as she attempts to intervene. Enraged, Edward stabs Jim in the chest and pushes him from a window of the mansion, killing him. Kim confesses her love to Edward and kisses him before she departs, leaving Edward alone. As the neighbours gather, Kim convinces them that Jim and Edward killed each other.

The elderly woman finishes telling her granddaughter the story and reveals that she is Kim in her old age. She says that she never saw Edward again, so that Edward would remember her as she was in her youth. She believes he is still alive because it would not be snowing without him. Edward is then seen carving ice sculptures with the bits of ice floating in the wind - sculptures of his experiences with Kim.

Production

Development

The genesis of Edward Scissorhands came from a drawing by then-teenaged director Tim Burton, which reflected his feelings of isolation and being unable to communicate to people around him in suburban Burbank. The drawing depicted a thin, solemn man with long, sharp blades for fingers. Burton stated that he was often alone and had trouble retaining friendships. "I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason, I don't know exactly why." During pre-production of Beetlejuice, Burton hired Caroline Thompson, then a young novelist, to write the Edward Scissorhands screenplay as a spec script. Burton was impressed with her short novel, First Born, which was "about an abortion that came back to life". Burton felt First Born had the same psychological elements he wanted to showcase in Edward Scissorhands. "Every detail was so important to Tim because it was so personal", Thompson remarked. She wrote Scissorhands as a "love poem" to Burton, calling him "the most articulate person I know, but couldn't put a single sentence together".

Shortly after Thompson's hiring, Burton began to develop Edward Scissorhands at Warner Bros., with whom he worked on Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice. However, within a couple of months, Warner sold the film rights to 20th Century Fox. Fox agreed to finance Thompson's screenplay while giving Burton complete creative control. At the time, the budget was projected to be around $8–9 million. When writing the storyline, Burton and Thompson were influenced by Universal Horror films, such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Frankenstein (1931), and Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), as well as King Kong (1933) and various fairy tales. Burton originally wanted to make Scissorhands as a musical, feeling "it seemed big and operatic to me", but later dropped the idea. Following the enormous success of Batman, Burton arrived to the status of being an A-list director. He had the opportunity to do any film he wanted, but rather than fast track Warner Bros.' choices for Batman Returns or Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian, Burton opted to make Edward Scissorhands for Fox.

Casting

Although Winona Ryder was the first cast member attached to the script, Dianne Wiest was the first to sign on. "Dianne, in particular, was wonderful", Burton said. "She was the first actress to read the script, supported it completely and, because she is so respected, once she had given it her stamp of approval, others soon got interested". When it came to casting the lead role of Edward, several actors were considered; Fox was insistent on having Burton meet with Tom Cruise. "He certainly wasn't my ideal, but I talked to him", Burton remembered. "He was interesting, but I think it worked out for the best. A lot of questions came up". Cruise asked for a "happier" ending. Tom Hanks and Gary Oldman turned down the part, Hanks in favour of critical and commercial flop The Bonfire of the Vanities. Oldman found the story to be absurd, but understood it after watching "literally two minutes" of the completed film. Jim Carrey was also considered for the role, while Thompson favoured John Cusack. Elsewhere, William Hurt, Robert Downey Jr. and musician Michael Jackson expressed interest, although Burton did not converse with Jackson.

Though Burton was unfamiliar with Johnny Depp's then-popular performance in 21 Jump Street, he had always been Burton's first choice. At the time of his casting, Depp was wanting to break out of the teen idol status which his performance in 21 Jump Street had afforded him. When he was sent the script, Depp "wept like a new-born" and immediately found personal and emotional connections with the story. In preparation for the role, Depp watched many Charlie Chaplin films to study the idea of creating sympathy without dialogue. Fox studio executives were so worried about Edward's image, that they tried to keep pictures of Depp in full costume under wraps until release of the film. Burton approached Ryder for the role of Kim Boggs based on their positive working experience in Beetlejuice. Drew Barrymore previously auditioned for the role. Crispin Glover auditioned for the role of Jim before Anthony Michael Hall was cast.

Kathy Baker saw her part of Joyce, the neighbour who tries to seduce Edward, as a perfect chance to break into comedy. Alan Arkin says when he first read the script, he was "a bit baffled. Nothing really made sense to me until I saw the sets. Burton's visual imagination is extraordinary". The role of The Inventor was written specifically for Vincent Price, and would ultimately be his final feature film role. Burton commonly watched Price's films as a child, and, after completing Vincent, the two became good friends. Robert Oliveri was cast as Kevin, Kim's younger brother. Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys plays an uncredited role as the blond boy playing on the Slip 'n Slide as Edward rides in Peg's car through suburbia.

Filming

Burbank, California was considered as a possible location for the suburban neighbourhoods, but Burton believed the city had become too altered since his childhood so the Tampa Bay Area of Florida, including the town of Lutz, on Tinsmith Circle inside the Carpenter's Run subdivision, and the Southgate Shopping Centre of Lakeland was chosen for a three-month shooting schedule. The production crew found, in the words of the production designer Bo Welch, "a kind of generic, plain-wrap suburb, which we made even more characterless by painting all the houses in faded pastels, and reducing the window sizes to make it look a little more paranoid." The key element to unify the look of the neighbourhood was Welch's decision to repaint each of the houses in one of four colours, which he described as "sea-foam green, dirty flesh, butter, and dirty blue". The façade of the Gothic mansion was built just outside Dade City. Filming Edward Scissorhands created hundreds of (temporary) jobs and injected over $4 million into the Tampa Bay economy. Production then moved to a Fox Studios sound stage in Century City, California, where interiors of the mansion were filmed.

To create Edward's scissor hands, Burton employed Stan Winston, who would later design the Penguin's prosthetic makeup in Batman Returns. Depp's wardrobe and prosthetic makeup took one hour and 45 minutes to apply. The giant topiaries that Edward creates in the film were made by wrapping metal skeletons in chicken wire, then weaving in thousands of small plastic plant sprigs. Rick Heinrichs worked as one of the art directors.

Music

Edward Scissorhands is the fourth feature film collaboration between director Tim Burton and composer Danny Elfman. The orchestra consisted of 79 musicians. Elfman cites Scissorhands as epitomizing his most personal and favourite work. In addition to Elfman's music, three Tom Jones songs also appear: "It's Not Unusual", "Delilah" and "With These Hands". "It's Not Unusual" would later be used in Mars Attacks! (1996), another film of Burton's with music composed by Elfman. Selections from the score had been used in the trailers for other films including The Secret Garden (1993), The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), The Ladykillers (2004), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) and two other Tim Burton films: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Big Fish (2003).

Themes

Burton acknowledged that the main themes of Edward Scissorhands deal with self-discovery and isolation. Edward is found living alone in the attic of a Gothic castle, a setting that is also used for main characters in Burton's Batman and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Edward Scissorhands climaxes much like James Whale's Frankenstein and Burton's own Frankenweenie. A mob confronts the "evil creature", in this case, Edward, at his castle. With Edward unable to consummate his love for Kim because of his appearance, the film can also be seen as being influenced by Beauty and the Beast. Edward Scissorhands is a fairy tale book-ended by a prologue and an epilogue featuring Kim Boggs as an old woman telling her granddaughter the story, augmenting the German Expressionism and Gothic fiction archetypes.

Burton explained that his depiction of suburbia is "not a bad place. It's a weird place. I tried to walk the fine line of making it funny and strange without it being judgmental. It's a place where there's a lot of integrity." Kim leaves her jock boyfriend (Jim) to be with Edward, an event that many have postulated as Burton's revenge against jocks he encountered as a teenager in suburban Burbank, California. Jim is subsequently killed, a scene that shocked a number of observers who felt the whole tone of the film had been radically altered. Burton referred to this scene as a "high school fantasy".

Release/Reception/Box Office

Edward Scissorhands received acclaim from critics and audiences. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film holds a 90% approval rating, based on 60 reviews, with an average score of 7.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "The first collaboration between Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands is a magical modern fairy tale with gothic overtones and a sweet center." Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 74 out of 100 based on 19 reviews from mainstream critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews". CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a "A-" grade.

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the piece by stating, "Burton's richly entertaining update of the Frankenstein story is the year's most comic, romantic and haunting film fantasy." He continued by praising Depp's performance stating, "Depp artfully expresses the fierce longing in gentle Edward; it's a terrific performance" and the "engulfing score" from Danny Elfman. Staff of Variety spoke highly of the film, "Director Burton takes a character as wildly unlikely as a boy whose arms end in pruning shears, and makes him the center of a delightful and delicate comic fable."

Marc Lee of The Daily Telegraph scored the film five out of five stars, writing, "Burton's modern fairytale has an almost palpably personal feel: it is told gently, subtly and with infinite sympathy for an outsider who charms the locals but then inadvertently arouses their baser instincts." He also praised Depp as being "sensational in the lead role, summoning anxiety, melancholy and innocence with heart-breaking conviction. And it's all in the eyes: his dialogue is cut-to-the-bone minimal."

The Washington Post's Desson Thomson wrote, "Depp is perfectly cast, Burton builds a surrealistically funny cul-de-sac world, and there are some very funny performances from grownups Dianne Wiest, Kathy Baker and Alan Arkin." Rita Kempley, also writing for The Washington Post, praised the film: "Enchantment on the cutting edge, a dark yet heartfelt portrait of the artist as a young mannequin." She too praised Depp's performance in stating, "... nicely cast, brings the eloquence of the silent era to this part of few words, saying it all through bright black eyes and the tremulous care with which he holds his horror-movie hands.

Owen Gleiberman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, gave the film an "A-" rating, commending Elfman's score and calling the character of Edward "Burton's surreal portrait of himself as an artist: a wounded child converting his private darkness into outlandish pop visions", and "Burton's purest achievement as a director so far." Of Depp he wrote, "Depp may not be doing that much acting beneath his neo-Kabuki makeup, but what he does is tremulous and affecting."

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote, "Mr. Burton invests awe-inspiring ingenuity into the process of reinventing something very small." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a mixed review, awarding it two stars out of four and writing that "Burton has not yet found the storytelling and character-building strength to go along with his pictorial flair."

Test screenings for the film were encouraging for 20th Century Fox. Joe Roth, then president of the company, considered marketing Edward Scissorhands on the scale of "an E.T.-sized blockbuster," but Roth decided not to aggressively promote the film in that direction. "We have to let it find its place. We want to be careful not to hype the movie out of the universe," he reasoned. Edward Scissorhands had its limited release in the United States on December 7, 1990. The wide release came on December 14, and the film earned $6,325,249 in its opening weekend in 1,372 theatres. Edward Scissorhands eventually grossed $56,362,352 in North America, and a further $29,661,653 outside North America, coming to a worldwide total of $86.02 million. With a budget of $20 million, the film is considered a box office success. The New York Times wrote "the chemistry between Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder, who were together in real life at the time (1989–1993), gave the film teen idol potential, drawing younger audiences."

Budget $20 million

Box office $86 million

My Review

I remember sitting in the theatre when this first came out and totally blown away by the snow drifting over the 20th Century Fox logo and the sudden influx of the Danny Elfman music which drifted me off into the fantasy world of this strange suburb world where a castle on a strategically placed mountaintop once was the residence for a sweet old man so desperate for a son, he created the title character. In the prologue of this film, beloved thespian Vincent Price saunters along the corridors of his castle, preparing to give his invented son Edward (Johnny Depp) everything he needed, that is, besides hands, which unfortunately were never able to be placed on him.

Swing down to earth where unlucky Avon lady (Dianne Wiest in her most perfect mom role) decides to trek up to the castle and make a sale. There she meets the lonely Edward and brings him home. But as fascinated as the family is with Edward and his Scissorhands, there's also a danger there as the enchanted neighbours take all sorts of interest in the newcomer to their community. Kathy Baker's flirtatious Peg obviously lusts over him with ambrosia salad, cheery Conchata Ferrell takes him into be sharpened, but there's also warnings from a religious obsessed neighbour who thinks him evil.

There is evil in the valley, but it's not through the Frankenstein Monster/Pinocchio/Jesus Christ like Edward. He instils joy both with his haircuts and with his trimming of the local shrubbery. It's through the boyfriend of Wiest's daughter, Winona Ryder, obviously jealous of the growing affection between Ryder and Depp. Anthony Michael Hall gives a disturbing performance as the cheery on the outside jock who is all nastiness on the inside, getting Edward involved in a crime, and resulting in a chase sequence that results in a confrontation back at the castle.

While the plot requires some sort of violence in order to create the necessary tension, that doesn't take over the film, which is a series of vignettes of how Edward fares in regular society after being alone for so long. His neighbours love him as long as everything is cookies and paper machete cut-outs, but once fear strikes into their hearts, Edward is an outcast. Even the injured war vet who once compared his metal leg with Edward's hands now calls him a freak, and cheery Farrell threatens to call the police after a misunderstanding. It comments on society how something new and unknown can be exciting but once the reality sets in, people no longer accept it. Depp is sensitive in his sweet persona, and his chemistry with Ryder is undeniable.

As the parents, Wiest and Alan Arkin are a constant delight. In a performance I felt award worthy, Wiest is funny and touching, applying Depp's face with all sorts of cold cremes (of all colours) to fix the cuts on his face from his own scissors. Arkin gives a totally unaffected performance, his character so in awe of life as it happens, his child-like qualities exploding, even when he insists to Edward that you can't pay bills with cookies. The presence of Price in one of his last acting roles truly is touching. Try not to tear up as you see the beloved master of horror doing what he does best, entertaining, and influencing today's generations of superstars and creative film makers.

There's some comical touches that are impossible not to stick in the mind; The old lady at the beginning, telling her granddaughter the story, has an irony of familiarity to her, and the poor little girl lost in the huge bed, is awestruck not only by the story but by the constantly falling snow outside. It isn't hard to figure out why the narrative is the way it is, and when the old lady says her last line and that Danny Elfman music strikes up again, be prepared for the tears to flow once again.

Other films that are genuinely moving are The Elephant Man, Fearless and Camille. Edward Scissorhands is a film of darkness and beauty, that makes it such a wonderful and unique film to see. One thing that I really liked about Edward Scissorhands was the music score by Danny Elfman, which was very beautiful, sensitive and mysterious. A good example is in the beginning credits, with the angelic choir accompanying the Christmas-like images on screen. The cinematography was gorgeous, with bright imaginative close-ups contrasted with genuinely Gothic scenes, like when we first meet Edward in the dark house. The script, while not the strongest category of the film, was still very touching, and added to the charm and suspense that was already ensured in the film. The direction by Tim Burton had all his trademarks, very dark and suspenseful, evident in films like Batman and Sleepy Hollow, if a little odd at times, which is fairly typical of Burton. While there were one or two funny moments, the film is genuinely poignant, with a heart-rending ending. I will say I was most impressed with the acting, topped by Johnny Depp's tragic and poignant portrayal of the title character, and then Winona Ryder as Kim, while not quite as convincing is still very sensitive. I was shocked that Depp didn't get an Oscar for his performance, he doesn't say much, but his facial expressions fully justify. There was also sterling support from Dianne West, Kathy Baker et al, while Vincent Price in a minor role as the inventor also impresses, such a shame he died three years later, he was a brilliant actor, if you see him as the truly Machiavellian villain in Great Mouse Detective, or the sadistic Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General, you'll know what I mean. As I have already said, the ending is so heart-rending, that I will confess I got through half a box of tissues. Overall, a remarkably beautiful and poignant film that had me speechless. My advice to anyone who hasn't seen it, and is planning to, have a box of tissues at the ready, it is that sad. 10/10

{The best thing from this movie is Ice Dance, the fact that Danny thought it wasn't good enough at first is so sad because the music is so beautiful}