This was one of those films which kept me in a state of wry amusement for its entire running time, occasionally prompting smiles and even laughter (particularly in the scene where Wood's motley assortment of associates sneak into the warehouse in order to steal the suspended mechanical octopus). The aesthetic is very Tim Burton, and it works well; it would've been easy to slide into outright ridicule of Wood and his ilk, and there are plenty of other obvious targets woven into the fabric of the film, but instead Ed Wood chooses the more difficult route of presenting its subjects as both ridiculous and sympathetic. We're meant to feel both exasperation and a sort of admiration in relation to Depp's Wood, and likewise towards the whole industry, its hucksters, conmen and icons alike, and that's exactly how I felt.
There's pathos in the figure of Martin Landau's Bela Lugosi, abandoned by the industry that made him great and reduced to a tattered morphine addict, and, less obviously, in Bill Murray's melancholically ageing queen, and Sarah Jessica Parker as Wood's long-suffering girlfriend is spot-on in her scathing assessment of Wood's crew as a bunch of no-hopers and never-weres, but it's all balanced by the sheer enthusiasm of Ed Wood for the films he makes and for cinema itself, constantly talking himself out on the fine edge of nothing, filled with joie de vivre and chutzpah but also faintly aware of the tenuousness of it all, and the appearance of Orson Welles (Vincent D'Onofrio) near the end is just what was needed to tip things in the right direction, both for Wood and for us as viewers, so that Ed Wood ultimately appears as a celebration of all things cinematic, remaining true to its fond, if unsparing, tone throughout.
