Edward Scissorhands, which airs Thursday, is the fifth installment of a special eight-week cult classics series at The Athena Cinema. Each movie will run on Thursdays at 7 p.m. For a full schedule, click here.
Edward Scissorhands, the first of several successful collaborations between director Tim Burton and actor Johnny Depp, is the story of a lonely, unfinished man with scissors for hands and his rise to and subsequent fall from local fame for his unique condition, as well as the many eccentric townspeople he encounters along the way (including a sexually promiscuous housewife, a vehemently fundamentalist Christian woman, a young and dashing Winona Ryder, and a comically miscast intimidating bully — played by Anthony Michael Hall, the lovable nerd from Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles). The premise is surely ridiculous and contains about as much subtlety as the titular character’s quite literal name, but regardless, Burton manages to suspend the disbelief of viewers just enough to encapsulate them with his humor and emotionally touching vision.
Unsurprisingly, the film is visually as striking and creative as any other work of Tim Burton’s. The bright yet strangely monotonous color scheme of the suburb in which the film takes place is a critical commentary in itself of society’s obsession with conformity, and the dark and secluded mansion upon a hill where our main character resides at the beginning of the movie serves as something of a metaphor for Edward’s utter loneliness. Burton’s uniquely stylized direction both adds a comedic touch seen in spades with his 1988 classic, Beetlejuice, and serves as a reflection of the strange concept at the heart of the film.
That is not, however, to discount the importance of the cast to the success of the film, as the actors and actresses involved are as much an essential to its success as Burton’s direction. Johnny Depp, while in a role almost devoid of any meaningful dialogue, radiates the over-the-top weirdness necessary to pull off a gothic character with scissors as hands. Winona Ryder and Dianne Wiest are perfect as the lovable, morally-pure daughter and the generous and protective mother, respectively. The supporting characters, meanwhile — led by a team of yuppie housewife caricatures, and the aforementioned Anthony Michael Hall (who, despite the earlier harsh words, was an absolute joy to see on screen for purely nostalgic reasons) — are just as vital to the movie’s peculiar tone.
Edward Scissorhands is, surely, an insanely premised creation capable of flaming out in a heap of mediocrity, but Burton’s unwavering dedication to his own vision, filled to the brim with creative ingenuity and cleverness, keeps it alive (and then some). The film is a tragedy of a kind and misunderstood soul cast to the outskirts of society carelessly, much in the vein of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, but one that trades straight-laced maturity for childlike imagination and deep thematic elements for an oftentimes hilarious comedic touch. It’s strange, bizarre, eccentric and truly unique — well worth the money and two hours of your time.
Four stars (out of five).
