Ed Wood (1994)

Undoubtedly one of Burton's lesser known films, Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) is a film which brushes much closer to reality than Burton normally tackles, and after watching this it becomes clear why. It seems that through charting quite a vast stretch of the struggling directors life, this black and white biopic looses itself along the way somewhere. The tone never quite hits the right pitch, turning from a screwball comedy about a director's antics to get his film made one minute to what should be the heart-wrenching tale of a former star's battle with addiction and financial collapse the next; although this is never treated as seriously as the issue suggests it should be. Burton struggles to give each sub-plot the time it deserves in a film that already stretches its audience's attention span to the limit. Wood's relationship with his first girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) ends as abruptly as his friendship with Lugosi (Martin Landau) begins, with neither getting the full emotional investment it needs to be convincing. It seems that Burton's love for the director who's life he was charting clouded his ability to create a cohesive story, he relies too heavily on the fact that these events really happened instead of creating a story and set of characters whose lives the audience would believe anyway. The acting the redeemer of this picture, with brilliant performances across the cast. Depp is both funny and tender in the role, he appears as comfortable on camera in men or women's clothing and doesn't slip into fishing for laughs through his costume, something which endears his performance. Landau capture the grandiose acting style of Lugosi, while also creating a great sympathy for the character as he succumbs to his addiction. The cameo from Vincent D'Onofrio as Orson Welles is also worthy of note as he convincingly fills the shoes of a personality who is both in the film and in reality often revered by the film world. Overall Ed Wood is a film which bears all the imprints of classic Burton but functions on a reality a little too close to home to be treated with the slightly wacky and hyperbolic style that we know and love from him. Brilliantly acted and cleverly filmed to fit the style of the low budget, horror B movie though.