review by False_Rumors
Edward Scissorhands 1990
Rewatched Apr 28, 2012
False_Rumors’s review:
It's easy to lose sight of how spectacular Tim Burton once was. He can still occasionally knock them out of the park (Sweeney Todd) but we all know his aesthetic has become rote and without depth. Edward Scissorhands is his masterpiece (although arguments can be made for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Big Fish, for totally different reasons), and it's one of those cinematic moments, like watching Jaws or Pulp Fiction where you wonder how all these elements came together to create such perfection. It's movie magic.
The film manages to combine sad, funny, uncomfortable and ridiculous all in the most balanced ratios to create something incredibly unique that's not only beautiful to look at but hits your heart in such an unexpected way and leaves you baffled.
Was he better off alone? Or was the pain worth it to learn companionship and love?
Edward is Frankenstein's monster and Pinocchio and a romantic lead and the boy next door all rolled into one. In a true case of "less is more", Depp conveys so much by saying very, very little.
Let's all dance in the snow.
Hey Amanda, get a load of this: You know that big gaudy grocery store complex in the movie, with the arch? I think the scene where the slutty mom comes onto Edward is set there? It's, like, 20 minutes from my parents' house.
go find a dude with scissors for hands and reenact that scene. get that chicks haircut. go on, try on some smocks.
This was one of my favorite movies before I really "got into movies" and I was kind of worried it wouldn't hold up, judging by Burton's subsequent track record and the general fact that it seems like such a "high school" movie to begin with. I eventually ended up catching some of it on TV one day and was surprised how much it still affected me.
It's been at least a decade since I watched it because it causes All The Weeping but yeah it still pretty much blew me away. The aesthetic is amazing and not over the top and it's one of those movies that just doesn't seem like it should be as completely heartbreaking as it is.