Why does everybody seem to love this film?

Edward Scissorhands

Today, when I just put up a wallpaper of Naked Lunch, I realized that I haven’t watched a film since then! Surely I won’t be able to watch all that much in near future either, and the thought of it makes me a little sad. But I have decided so, and I know that I always have had times when I watched more and times when I watched less films (perhaps one day, I should make some statistics ;) )

A really interesting thing about Edwards Scissorhands is that everybody I know seems to have watched it. Back then when I was in high school, girls were raving about the films and the incredible cuteness of Johnny Depp. Although they loved talking about the film, content-wise it seemed to have stopped at fangirling about Johnny Depp’s attractiveness. They didn’t seem to care about the story at all, let alone the characters. It seems Mr. Depp did his job really well – any random other actor definitely would not have been able to play this role in such a sympathetic way. Perhaps he’s the only good-looking actor who can act really, really well.

Aside from this, everything about this film was a surprise for me. I didn’t know who or what Edward was, and I had no idea that he would be taken in by some clichéd family in a hilariously clichéd 50s-US-banlieue environment. The portrait of those horrible housewives was splendid, especially the mother. Sadly, I really find the characters of Kim and her obnoxious boyfriend a little over-the-top. Personally I think he wasn’t as realistic as the other characters and was presented too much as the villain who doesn’t have any good. The story would have been even more touching if everybody around Edward would have been ‘normal’ people without meaning any malice on the surface, and then turn against him due to some misunderstanding that was not caused by an evil, rough boy.
I also didn’t feel so moved by the end of the story as others might feel, but the development in the relationship between Kim and Edward was actually portrayed in a very sweet way. And I admit that I have found it very cute how she confessed her love to him at the end.

All in all, I actually think highly of the film despite the underwhelming sounding review. Even though I prefer most of the other Burton films I have seen over this one, I thoroughly enjoyed the subtle comedy of this film as well as Johnny Depp’s great acting.

PS. Oh, let’s see how a Tim Burton ranking would look like:
1. Corpse Bride
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
3. Ed Wood
4. Edward Scissorhands
5. Sleepy Hollow
6. Big Fish
And yes, I know that I absolutely need to watch “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Sweeney Todd”. ;) I’m not so sure about the Batman movies though.