SPOILERS! You've been warned.
Rated PG
Last seen: March 2005
Edward Scissorhands
Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest
Directed by: Tim Burton
DIRECTORIAL GENIUS
CHARACTERS
Edward Scissorhands - A little socially awkward. Bad haircut. Scissors for hands.
Kim - Edward's love interest.
Peg - Kim's mother. The one who discovers Edward.
Jim - Kim's jerk boyfriend.
The Inventor - The guy that made Edward and died before he had a chance to give him real hands.
PLOT
A grandmother and a granddaughter are talking before bed. The little brat doesn't want to shut up, so Grandma agrees to tell her the story of how snow started in their town.
The movie begins with Peg going to the Dr. Suess-resembling houses to sell cosmetics. She's an Avon lady. None of her friends in the neighbourhood want to buy her products. I can see why too. I mean, come on, purple eyeshadow? What girl wants that? But, besides that, Peg really wants to get some customers. She's so persistent that she even drives out to some old mansion at the end of the neighbourhood. Driving past all the spooky trees on the road up to it, it doesn't seem like this was a wise choice. When she arrives at the front gate, to her surprise, all the lawn hedges are cut into beautiful animal shapes. The centerpiece of this whole arrangement is a carefully sculpted hand set in front of the house. The owner is some inventor that died. Why would she think anybody was living there? Well, she figures as much when she steps in and there's no furniture, only dust. But then, she hears a noise.
Mistaking what is most likely possible danger for a sale, she heads up the stairs in it's direction. At the stairs, she sees a young, cowering, strange looking boy. He's entirely pale and his hair is wild. The worst of all is when she realizes instead of hands, he has scissors. His name is Edward and since he seems alone, Peg wants to take him home.
The story of Edward is tragic, as it's revealed bit by bit throughout the movie. The inventor created a whole bunch of robots to do cooking for him in his giant mansion. His favorite was the robot that had scissors for hands that was used to cut up salad. He envisioned that he could make him into a human. Thus, we have Edward. Edward was taught manners and etiquette and everything but common sense. The inventor died right before he gave Edward his hands, so Edward was stuck with scissors.
Back at Peg's house, Edward has a little trouble adjusting. Peg put him in Kim's room to sleep. When Kim comes home early from a camping trip she's on she thinks that Edward is a murderer in her bed. And so, they don't get off to a very good start. But there's something about Edward that makes him accepted among all. The fact that he can quickly sculpt any hedge into a beautiful sculpture. He does so for all the neighbours, then he starts trimming their dogs, and finally doing their hair. The hair cuts are a little questionable in terms of endearment.
Edward also has another talent that Kim and Jim discover. He can pick locks. Jim uses this to his advantage to steal something from his father. He makes Edward break into his house and then, after Edward picks the lock of the safe, an alarm goes off. Poor Edward is trapped inside the room. He gets charged with the robbery and all the neighbours turn against him.
Kim and him fall in love. It's a long story of how that goes about. Edward sculpts an angel on the lawn using ice and the ice spray is snow. Jim drives around drunk with his friends and almost runs over Kim's brother. Edward saves him, but ends up hurting him too. The neighbours are even more antagonistic against Edward now. Edward gets chased back up to the mansion, when Jim comes after him and they fight. Edward ends up killing Jim because he's going to hurt Kim. When all the neighbours see a dead Jim on the lawn, they scream for Edward's blood. Edward must say goodbye to Kim for they will never see one another again. Kim plucks a scissorhand off of an old robot and pretends that Edward is dead so that the neighbours leave him alone. And now, besides sculpting hedges, Edward now sculpts ice in the attic of his mansion, creating snow over the town.
FAVORITE SCENE
Edward sculpting hedges.
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