Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands arrived in 1990 as a gothic romance built from a very simple image: a pale young man with blades where his fingers should be. Johnny Depp plays him. Winona Ryder plays Kim, the suburban daughter he loves. The film runs 105 minutes and grossed over four times its $20 million budget. It won the British Academy Film Award for Best Production Design and the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. It holds a 9.2/10 score (92%) on Rotten Tomatoes. Thirty-six years on, it remains the movie Burton was put here to make.
Trailer, via HD Retro Trailers.
An Unfinished Man on a Hill
Edward is the creation of an old inventor, played by Vincent Price in his last film role released during his lifetime. The inventor homeschooled Edward, then died of a heart attack before he could give him hands. Edward is left unfinished, alone, ageless, living in a decrepit Gothic mansion on a hill above a pastel suburb.
Peg Boggs, played by Dianne Wiest, sells Avon door to door. She drives up to the mansion, finds Edward, and takes him home. She introduces him to her husband Bill, played by Alan Arkin, their young son Kevin, played by Robert Oliveri, and their teenage daughter Kim.
The neighbors throw a barbecue to welcome him. Most are fascinated. Two are not: Esmeralda, played by O-Lan Jones, a religious fanatic, and Jim, played by Anthony Michael Hall, Kim’s boyfriend.
What His Hands Can Do
Edward repays the neighborhood with his blades. The film lays out the work plainly:
- He trims the hedges into topiaries.
- He grooms the neighbors’ dogs.
- He styles the hair of the neighborhood women.
Joyce, played by Kathy Baker, offers to help him open a hair salon. While they scout a location, she attempts to seduce him. He runs. She then tells the neighborhood women that Edward raped her, reducing their trust in him. The bank refuses him a loan, and Edward’s dream of opening the salon is ruined.
Two Men, One Town
Jim is jealous of Kim’s pull toward Edward, and he uses Edward’s naivety to get what he wants. The film’s two young men are not opposites so much as a study in what each one does with the same town.
| Edward | Jim | |
|---|---|---|
| Hands | Scissor blades | Ordinary |
| Work in the suburb | Trims hedges, grooms dogs, styles hair | None shown |
| Standing with neighbors | Befriended, then cast out after Joyce’s lie | Kim’s boyfriend |
| Scheme against the other | None | Asks Edward to pick the lock on his parents’ home so he can steal his father’s electronic goods |
Jim asks Edward to pick the lock on his parents’ home so he can steal his father’s electronic goods and sell them to buy a van. Edward agrees. He picks the lock, a burglar alarm goes off, and walls come down and trap him inside.
The Cast Burton Built
Burton drew Edward Scissorhands from his own childhood in suburban Burbank, California. Caroline Thompson wrote the screenplay from a story by her and Burton. Development started at 20th Century Fox after Warner Bros. declined, and the film was fast-tracked after Burton’s success with Batman. It is the fourth collaboration between Burton and composer Danny Elfman.
The casting story is its own small comedy. Winona Ryder was the first cast member attached to the script, but 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.”
Fox pushed Burton to meet Tom Cruise for the lead. “He certainly wasn’t my ideal, but I talked to him,” Burton said. “He was interesting, but I think it worked out for the best. A lot of questions came up.” Cruise wanted a happier ending. Gary Oldman was on Burton’s shortlist but did not pursue it; the script did not resonate with him, though he came to appreciate the story within two minutes of watching the finished film. Jim Carrey was considered. Thompson favored John Cusack. Tom Hanks, William Hurt, Robert Downey Jr. and Michael Jackson expressed interest, though Burton never spoke with Jackson.
Depp was Burton’s first choice all along. Depp was then trying to break out of the teen idol status that 21 Jump Street had given him. He found personal and emotional connections in the script. To prepare, he watched many Charlie Chaplin films to study how to create sympathy without dialogue. Fox executives were so worried about Edward’s image that they tried to keep pictures of Depp in full costume under wraps until release.
The Blades Are the Whole Argument
The production design is the film’s spine, and the awards followed from it. The mansion sits above the suburb like a fact the suburb cannot explain away, and the pastel houses below are not a joke so much as a diagnosis. Burton is not sneering at the neighbors. He is showing what happens when a place that runs on sameness meets something it cannot copy.
The blades are the whole argument. Edward cannot touch anything without the risk of cutting it, and the film never lets him forget it. Every hedge he trims, every dog he grooms, every head of hair he styles is a small act of care performed with an instrument built for damage.
What matters most is Depp. He plays Edward without much dialogue and without irony, and the performance holds because he never asks for pity. He watches. He tilts his head. He wants to be near Kim and does not know how. Chaplin is the right model, and Depp got there.
The weak spot is Jim. Anthony Michael Hall plays him as a straight suburban bully, and the film gives him no interior life to match Edward’s. He exists to move the plot toward the burglary, and he does it. That is noise next to the design, Danny Elfman’s score and Depp.
Vincent Price gets the film’s cruelest scene and its warmest, and he is gone before the story properly starts. The inventor dies before the hands are finished. That absence is the engine of everything after it.
The film’s real subject is not the suburb but the cost of being cared for. Peg takes Edward in without asking what he is, and the town’s affection holds only while his blades are useful. The moment Joyce lies, the neighbors’ trust is reduced. Edward never changes. The town turns on him, and the turn is not about him. That is the part that still stings.
The casting notes are the piece of this that keeps giving. Cruise wanted a happier ending, Oldman passed because the script was too strange for him, and Depp got the part by being the only name Burton wanted from the start. A studio that worried about its lead, a shortlist that walked away, and a finished film that outlasted every objection. Score: 9.2/10
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