An Avon saleswoman discovers an artificial man in the old mansion above the suburban town she lives in. Realising that he is all alone and unfinished with scissors for hands she decides to take him home and look after him. 

When Peg (Dianne Wiest) takes Edward (Johnny Depp) into her home she tries to integrate him into her family’s life. Dressing him in her husband’s clothes and giving him her daughter’s bedroom, complete with water bed, whilst she is away camping. The neighbours of the small town immediately start gossiping and are fascinated by the new occupant of their community. The person that Edward is most fascinated by is Peg’s daughter Kim (Winona Ryder). From the moment he sees her photograph at Peg’s home he is smitten. 

But Edward is not like everyone else and whilst he gains acceptance from the community for being a master of topiary, dog grooming and hair styling he is derided and ridiculed by Kim’s boyfriend. 

Edward Scissorhands is arguably Tim Burton’s most famous creation. A gothic fairytale where a grandmother explains to her granddaughter why it snows in their hometown. It has themes of conformity and moralises that it is what is on the inside that matters, borrowing from the likes of Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast. 

Edward is an outsider in every way. He is not human, has lived alone for many years since his creator died, is strikingly pale and has scissors for hands. In contrast the people and town that he lives above wear shades of pastel and live “normal” lives in their brightly painted homes. The men all go to work at the same time and get home at the same time whilst the women busy themselves gossiping about how different Edward is. Everyone tries to make Edward fit in. Peg tries to change his complexion with her Avon products and dress him like a normal man. Whilst the townsfolk all want to have him fit in by doing jobs with his hands. Hands that numerous people know a doctor who might be able to help with. 

It is only Kim who begins to understand who Edward is inside and let him be himself. But their love will never be enough to stand against the tide of “normal”. 

It is a classic story told in a beautiful and innovative way with so much to love. 

It looks striking. We have flashbacks of Edward’s creation with an inventor played by Vincent Price that give us a steampunk feel to his creation. The gothic visuals of the mansion and Edward himself and the pastel Dr. Seuss like cookie cutter suburbia. 

What would a Tim Burton movie be without a score from Danny Elfman? At the time of writing Elfman has provided the score to seventeen Burton movies and I would consider this to be one of the best. It manages to be whimsical, melancholy and dreamlike. 

Depp and Ryder are superb as the star crossed lovers whose innocence will be dashed. The film features the indelible image of Ryder dancing in the snow and the exchange, “Hold me.” “I can’t.”

Edward Scissorhands is marked indelibly in my mind as one of my earliest memories of the cinema. At the tender age of nine I saw Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and Edward Scissorhands with a friend and had to pretend which one I enjoyed the most. Perhaps that is a stark lesson in me not understanding the plot at a young age! 

It was a wonderful movie then and an enduring classic now.