Edward Scissorhands review

Edward Scissorhands review

A man full of child-like wonder.

The movie starts off with an elderly women telling her grand-daughter a bedtime story about when her mother found a mysterious man called Edward with scissors for hands and in pity and takes him into her house to look after him. There Edward finds new objects and discovers people that would greet him with open arms. The man with scissors for hands enjoys a barbecue with the neighbours. Talking, learning, listening until it was all over and he fell asleep on a water bed, which happened to belong to the daughter, Kim, who returns home early than the family expected and enters her bedroom where Edward was sleeping. She screamed to alarm the family that there was an intruder in the house only to be explained that it was a kind and gentle man that lived inside the dark castle nearby. The next morning Edward discovered a talent that he can cut bushes to make them look like animals and objects. Everyone was impressed and later asked him to cut the dogs fur which made the pet look fashionable, at that point one of them asked to cut their hair. He agrees and done just that which caused everyone to have one done from him too. Edward became a celebrity with everyone generating a fad of his style of haircuts. Days later and Kim and her boyfriend asks him to break into a house, there he was caught and taken to jail only to be freed and taken home. Christmas is coming and everyone was getting ready with decorations, even Edward was preparing for the holiday by cutting a giant ice block when he accentually cut Kim's hand. He jealous boyfriend got angry and continues to push and threaten Edward. As a response to control his anger he goes off on a rampage, cutting and stabbing anything in his way causing a fuss. The furious boyfriend decided to hunt down Edward only to follow him to the dark castle where the battle goes underway. Kim join them and gets smacked, which caused Edward to get even angrier that he stabbed the boyfriend and decides to hide in the castle where he will bother no one and so the story ends with Kim being an old women that was telling the story.

 

The film mainly focus on Edward discovering new things and that is what gives it is charm, it’s almost like watching a child that’s learning new things. The audience would know what to do with these things or situations because it’s what we do in our everyday lives but seeing Edward learning these new things really makes you think on how you do stuff. The film does brilliantly on talking about disability by having Edward (Looking like a grown man) undergo difficulties in the most simplest of tasks by having scissors as hands, which makes the audience feels a strong sense of pity for him. We want to help him but we can’t plus would they want us help them? Everyone has this great sense of pride so it is difficult to tell if they want us to help them or not. Like picking up a glass for them to drink, putting on clothes etc however this movie also tells us how to help them. For example: when Edward was picking up a glass he was struggling to succeed so the father gave him a straw so it was possible for Edward to drink. He gave the right amount of help not too much that it makes Edward feel like a child but not too little so you’ll have to deal with watching him suffer. The actors are amazingly talented in portraying the characters like Johnny Depp as Edward. Despite only having a few lines he has to focus on expressing his facial expressions, which can be difficult as he has to act like everything is new and not to get over excited otherwise people will get hurt.

The story, pacing and the main character are perfect to a point that it’s difficult to find any bad points without being nit-picking (Like where did Edward get the giant ice cubes when he is meant to be hiding from  everyone at the end of the movie?) There is some points that looks “fake”. For example: The cutting the hair moments, it obvious that all he is doing to fiddling with the hair while bits of fluff is spraying everywhere but that’s what gives it its charm and excitement.  The main flaw is that there is less screen time between Edward and Kim but because of that it gives off this Disney feeling that we all just have to except.

Overall this film gets a 9.2/10. A fantastic film that you cannot live without and highly recommended. It’s both whimsical yet dark, joyful yet sad, beautiful yet ugly, basically a perfect balance between light and dark. The film does brilliantly with everything it does, majestic settings, beautiful soundtrack and romantic story. This film has it all and I doubt that anyone would dislike this marvellous film.  Edward brings back what we all forgotten… the joys of life and child-like wonder.