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The kindly Avon lady takes Edward in with her family, using both her powers of maternal warmth and cosmetic engineering to make the kid feel at home. It goes well, with Edward fitting in both as part of the domestic landscape, not to mention part landscaper. But faster than you can say "antagonist", the Nosy Housewives show up, including the Religious one and The Slutty One. To them, Edward is either a curiosity or an abomination. To the Avon Lady, he's a project.
Nobody seems to want to get to know the real Edward.

…That is, until daughter Kim (Winona Ryder) comes home with her oafish boyfriend Jim (Anthony Michael Hall, who fills up a shirt for the first time on screen). Things get off to a rocky start, but I don't think it's spoiling anything to reveal that the contrast between Jim, who's a prick, and Edward, who's not, reveals a lot about Kim's character before the end of the movie. I also don't think it's a problem to mention that as quickly as the townsfolk run out of ways to use Edward for things is about the same time things start to go badly for Senor Scissors. The sensitive recluse finds himself subject to the white hot glare of suspicion and recrimination, and it will put significant strain on the few friendships he's made.

Edward Scissorhands obviously borrows a lot of things from a lot of places. It's a little Pinocchio, it's a little Frankenstein, it's a little, you know, Robert Smith from The Cure. But it's also a little window into Tim Burton's past. And it's fascinating to see how obviously isolated Edward looks juxtaposed against the ghastly pastel/polyester lowlights of Burton's childhood memories. And it's a little chilling if you consider it from the perspective of a shy, tormented genius with gifted hands (natch) forced to subsist on the tolerance of half competent strangers, each content to sleep at the wheel through life. And each insistent in their own way that Edward, on one level or another, conform and join or be expunged.

Burton's typically inventive visual landscapes give you - as they usually do - the feeling that you're inside a storybook or graphic novel. His witty, disarming story lulls you at first, before becoming as dark and vivid as a child's nightmare. And Danny Elfman's score alternates between dissonant three ring circus bombast and space-angels and twinkle bells - both his trademarks and both sufficient to underscore the plot rather than overshadow it. Or, to use the non word-salad version of the same point, it's a complete story. It's a fractured fable from another time; one where you come away feeling both pleasantly enriched AND a little sad. It's a pretty wonderful thing.

I haven't felt that way about a Tim Burton movie in a while. Maybe it's me, maybe it's him. It doesn't really matter. What's probably more important is the fact that a vanity picture is always a labor of love - but it's only when your audience doesn't have to labor to love it that you can call it a success. The very best thing to come out of Tim Burton's childhood was Tim Burton. And one of the very best things to ever come out of Tim Burton is Edward Scissorhands.

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