The story seems tragic because is very realistic
The main character is Edward , a humanoid puppet who has scissors instead of hands.He is left alone in a collapsing building after his creator died , and because he did not have any connections with the outside world , he didn’t see much of it.So when Peg comes to sell her useless products which nobody uses , she stumbles upon Edward , she feels like a good guy and takes Ed home because she thought he would be better in the society.And from this point , the whole story goes about how society tries (without success) to integrate Ed , who is too different for it.
After Kim appears into the story however , she is the one and only character who sees Ed as he really is : a gentle artist who will do anything for love.She discovers that Edward only wants love and happiness for everybody.And only after she finds this out she can enjoy Ed’s art.
They fall in love , they kiss , and then Ed has to hide himself because he did something unacceptable in the eyes of the society (he is found breaking into another house) , so love doesn’t always triumph.And this is realistic considering that our society wouldn’t accept a relationship between a woman and a man with scissors instead of hands.And this is the real tragedy , that our society is so closed minded that it will differentiate people because of their physical appearence.
Edward is a misunderstood artist
There are so many scenes when we see him cutting hair , and trees in a manner that is so beautiful that it could literally made my mother cry.Yet , nobody seems to notice.The way in which people treat Edward’s work is something like “Yeah , it’s nice , but OMG , did you see how bad his clothes look?”.And even from the beginning , the first thing that Peg does is to change Edward’s clothes , not necessarily because they looked bad , but because they looked so different , and it would have made him look repulsive in the eyes of her friends.
Yet , the fact that he looked different brang so many of Peg’s friends at her home , and soon , Edward becomes a trend.And as a trend starts , so it goes.He wasn’t appreciated because he did a fantastic job , but because he was “trendy” , and everyone had to have his own haircut done by Ed.Kim is the only character who sees how beautiful his art really is , but because nobody else could see it , Ed has to be just a barber who occasionally cuts the grass.After the trend is gone , why should they keep a weirdo with scissors instead of hands?
We understand from the very beginning that he won’t fit in , especially after we see his dark and grim appearance , in comparison to the colourful neighborhood.
By the end of the movie , we found out that a puppet was more human than all of the other characters and that he was indeed an artist who left something behind : the snow.
Every character represents one of society’s problems
First of all , we have Ed , who is one of the sad artists without social skills who can’t promote their art because everybody else is so caught up in their mundane lives that nothing is more interesting than “the new haircut”.
Kim is the stereotypical teenager , immature and unable to take responsability , who is in love with someone at the beginning of the movie , and in the end , she loves someone else.Her whole stupidity isn’t her fault , yet is her family’s (as her mother says “You can’t learn something in this family”).
Peg is the classic middle-worker , who can’t see more than her job and the Christmas party , and who thinks she made the right decision for everybody , when in fact she made the right decision exclusively for her.
Jim and his friends are the so-called hippies , unemployed alcoholics who use a guy with scissors to steal money.
Joyce is a housewife who has nothing special to offer , but who tries really hard to be special by flaunting herself to any man who could make her life a little bit less meaningless.
Helen is a metaphor for gossip , as she is present at any moment , but is maybe the most useless character for the story.
The officer represents how law usually is.Why should we move a finger when they can kill themselves?
Esmeralda is that “one asshole in the group”.Nobody likes her because she is a religious fanatic , but somehow she manages to “be right” about Ed in the eyes of everybody.
The inventor is just another metaphor for the families who procreate without thinking about how the kid is going to live.
Bill is the political correctness.He stinks of it.He is the model of any servile man , who tries to be good , to be respectful to the laws , because he thinks that political correctness is going to make him special in the eyes of the society , but in fact he is just a closed-minded dude.
The moral of the movie is : you’ll get f*cked by the society regardless of your intentions
Even from the beginning we see how beautifully he can cut trees.And even after he gets himself pinched for Kim whom he loves , the only things he receives are a kiss and some legs in the stomach.
After some times , he comes to the bank , were nobody seems to notice that he has scissors instead of hands but he is told that he has to buy a car in order to get money for a business (a business he didn’t need in the first place).
Even if the only thing he wanted was to bring happiness to his friends , this was not political correct.
We see how society will try to change a man only for its own prosperity.
We have to give Burton credit for the visuals and Depp for his performance
Edward wouldn’t have existed in the first place if Burton hadn’t been a tremendous artist.His Gothic sketches inspired so many beautiful movies that were underrated for a long time.
Young Johnny Depp’s performance was flawless , and once again , it wouldn’t have been if Burton hadn’t been able to express so many feelings with his drawings.
Overall , the movie is very , very good , with comical moments and deep messages behind it , in the same time having a very nice directing and a fantastic cast.
MG aesthetics 
Leave a Reply