As I was sitting in the theater with 20 other people, there was a palpable feeling of impatience and boredom. I believe a truly great film has one outstanding quality that separates it from mediocre films-- we CARE about what happens to the characters at the end. This movie tries extremely hard to achieve that but fails. You will not want to see this a second time ('re-watchability' is another sign of a standout film). While Augusten Burroughs may feel his life is fascinating, I believe he is self-absorbed to the point of narcissism. He had some unusual circumstances in his upbringing to be sure, but certainly some vignettes are exaggerated or not truthful, and some of his choices in life that failed were HIS choices. Ultimately, not only do we NOT care about these pathetic characters, we blame them for their own poor decisions. Okay, now having said that, it must be pointed out that 'Running With Scissors' not only contains some of the best acting of the year, but as an ensemble, the cast is EXCELLENT. This is easily Annette Bening's best performance ever; a real tour-de-force. She runs the gamut of emotions without chewing the scenery. My mother suffered a nervous breakdown when I was 12, and suffered many emotional problems which had an affect on me. So I could relate to the truthfulness of Annette Bening's character's ups and downs. I had thought that Meryl Streep in 'The Devil Wears Prada' would be my choice for Best Actress Oscar, but now it is Annette Bening. Brian Cox (HIS best ever), Alec Baldwin, and Evan Rachel Wood are top-notch. Due to the limitations of the character, Gwyneth Paltrow is muted, and though I adore her, and she's good here, this isn't her best. Joseph Fiennes is NOT a great actor, but this IS his best job yet. Kudos to Jill Clayburgh-- she was a mess, and let her skills shine through it all. It was a real treat to watch her. Surprisingly, Joseph Cross as the protagonist is a bit weak. He is 20 years old playing a 14 year-old. I couldn't buy it. Obviously, a true 14 year-old may not have been able to carry this film, but another late-teen might. Had Ryan Gosling been 18 and cast in this, HE might have caused us to care more. We needed a deeper actor than Joseph Cross. One nice thing about the movie is how it captures all the BS of the 70's in referencing over-medication and over-analysis for problem-solving. It even shows how electro-shock therapy was acceptable at one point for many ills, but no longer. Finally, there is something about this film that truly bugs me-- the trailer! We were led to believe that this would be a quirky film, with some wacky and interesting characters, a la 'The Royal Tennenbaums'. But the scenes in the trailer that came across as humorous carry serious weight in the film. I think the studio realized how heavy this movie was, and chose to market it as quirky to get more folks in. That isn't right, but typical of a studio. So I'm doing my part to tell you to NOT go see this, but maybe rent it on DVD to see some great acting (particularly Annette Bening). P.S. I just added this. I noticed another reviewer wrote that there was info about the characters at the end credits. I like reading credits, yet got out of there as soon as they started because I was so glad it was over. So there you go...
201 Reviews
Worth seeing for the performances, and it is often amusing, and even touching occasionally
zetes13 November 2006
Amusing but unsatisfying adaptation of Augusten Burrough's autobiography. Burrough's mother (played by Annette Bening) fancied herself a poet. After constant fighting with her husband (Alec Baldwin) she becomes entangled with a quack psychologist (Brian Cox), who drugs her up and convinces her to give custody of her son over to him. Augusten (Joseph Cross) lives between his mother and the psychologist, along with his quirky family (Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood). He also becomes romantically involved with the doctor's other adopted son (Joseph Fiennes, whom I didn't recognize at all). The film has a hard time deciding whether it's a comedy or a drama. I imagine Augosten Burroughs had a hard time deciding which category his life fit into, as well, if this is how it all went down! The doctor and his family are endlessly quirky. The man graduated from Yale, but lives in a hell-hole where nothing is clean, Christmas decorations are kept up all year around, and the doctor's wife eats dog food while watching Dark Shadows. Oh, and the guy interprets his stool to tell his fortune. But then, this is supposed to have really happened, so it certainly has a tragic angle to it all. The doctor doped Burrough's mother into oblivion and stole all her money, and the child support his father sent. The movie is often very funny, especially near the beginning, before we realize the tragic aspects of it. It does also contain one of the funniest lines of the year, concerning the doctor's private room, which he refers to as his "masturbatorium", read with aplomb by Brian Cox. The movie starts falling apart when the drama and comedy don't mix. Several scenes don't work well at all, especially a completely nonsensical montage mixing three disparate events together, at least one of which doesn't fit into the movie whatsoever. The pop music score is especially amateurish, even worse than the one in The Departed. The movie is far from great, but it's worth seeing for the performances. Everyone is very good here. Wait for video, though.
Stands on it's own but joyless account of book
jupiter2-66 April 2008
This is not an awful movie nor isn't it a recommendation of mine but Augusten Burrough's life seems gypped with this rendition. Obviously, Annette Bening was glorious as the misdirected, doped, self-important woman who has been stripped of a goal in life, something she is not innocent in ruining herself. Additionally, Jill Clayburgh hits another high note as she inhabits her role as expertly as Bening. Obviously, the women shine here. In fact, none of the actors fail the film for acting chops. Unfortunately, the bent and disturbed early life of Augusten Burroughs almost seems zapped of his personal joy and awe at his wild surroundings. Augusten was inspired by these events not just a victim of them. A problem the casting had was for its main character. Joseph Cross seems miscast in that he is clearly much too old to fill his shoes. An important fact is that Augusten was a minor involved in a lopsided affair with a man much older than he. In this casting, Fiennes and Cross could have been schoolmates so the legal point of "statutory rape" seems quite lost nor is there any indication of how his strength evolved out of this relationship. Augusten's writings delve into and reveal his flamboyance and vanity as well as his apparent jubilation at having such a disturbed upbringing. Augusten in the film becomes merely a secondary character with very little interaction. It's almost not about him. As a heartbreaking dissection of how family members can cripple each other and have their dreams implode, this film soars. It might have been better as fiction but Augusten Burroughs' personality on film doesn't evolve except for some minor wardrobe changes. There's a lot more pain, destruction and crying here than any amazement at it all, a much more distinct element in Burroughs' writing. It hardly skirts how funny and clever he is on paper.
Contains some moments of brilliance amongst a pedestrian treatment
JoeytheBrit17 April 2008
Well, one thing you can't say about this film is that it doesn't try to be different, even if it ultimately resembles a number of independent US 'dysfunctional family' movies. The trouble is it sometimes comes across as being too clever and, for all its quirky characters - who should be drawing you into their world and lives - the film stubbornly holds the audience at arm's length. This is a major weakness, because it leaves you feeling like you're watching animals in a zoo or specimens under a microscope rather than real people with real emotions.
The immediate suspicion about memoirs is that they are the memories (real or manufactured - but that's an entirely different can of worms) of just one person in the story, and that the other characters have no opportunity to provide their side of that story. The real-life Finch family brought legal action against Augusten Burroughs for the way they were portrayed and the case was settled out of court by Burrough's publishers. This could have been because they didn't want to get involved in a potentially damaging and expensive court case, or it might have been because the Finches had a strong case - either way the fact of the settlement is bound to cast some doubt over the truth of Burrough's tale.
With regards to the film itself, it's something of a trudge for the most part. This is despite the fact that every single part is played to perfection by an eclectic cast. Brian Cox, whose career appears to become more successful the older he gets, is especially good as the crackpot psychiatrist who adopts the 15-year-old Burroughs (Joseph Cross), welcoming him into an eccentric and disturbed family. Annette Bening also gives a terrific performance, even though her character becomes increasingly annoying as the film goes on (only Jill Clayburgh and Alec Baldwin's characters emerge with any kind of dignity). Although the film tends to drag at times, when it shines it really shines, especially with the use of some well-chosen songs from the 70s. The sequence played out to Al Stewart's Year of the Cat is particularly memorable, and it's a shame that these moments are distributed so sparingly amongst the more pedestrian material.
The immediate suspicion about memoirs is that they are the memories (real or manufactured - but that's an entirely different can of worms) of just one person in the story, and that the other characters have no opportunity to provide their side of that story. The real-life Finch family brought legal action against Augusten Burroughs for the way they were portrayed and the case was settled out of court by Burrough's publishers. This could have been because they didn't want to get involved in a potentially damaging and expensive court case, or it might have been because the Finches had a strong case - either way the fact of the settlement is bound to cast some doubt over the truth of Burrough's tale.
With regards to the film itself, it's something of a trudge for the most part. This is despite the fact that every single part is played to perfection by an eclectic cast. Brian Cox, whose career appears to become more successful the older he gets, is especially good as the crackpot psychiatrist who adopts the 15-year-old Burroughs (Joseph Cross), welcoming him into an eccentric and disturbed family. Annette Bening also gives a terrific performance, even though her character becomes increasingly annoying as the film goes on (only Jill Clayburgh and Alec Baldwin's characters emerge with any kind of dignity). Although the film tends to drag at times, when it shines it really shines, especially with the use of some well-chosen songs from the 70s. The sequence played out to Al Stewart's Year of the Cat is particularly memorable, and it's a shame that these moments are distributed so sparingly amongst the more pedestrian material.
American Beauty Devolves into a Shrill Mess -- Auntie Mame, with Too Many Weirdos
nycritic29 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
There's not enough soap in the world that can equate itself to the gargantuan, but somehow morbidly watchable mess, that is RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, a movie that has been mis-marketed as a black comedy in all of its trailers -- mostly focusing on Annette Bening's take on a deranged Auntie Mame mixed with an even shriller variation of her devastating suburban hausfrau in American BEAUTY as she quarrels endlessly with Alec Baldwin who here plays George to her Martha, a scene in which Gwyneth Paltrow interrupts a shock therapy about to begin, and a botched attempt to create a skyline that prompts Brian Cox's priceless remark about "irony".
For the most part, the movie is well written, and even small, nearly thankless parts, such as the one the once-great Jill Clayburgh plays, have enough life to stand on their own in the bizarro world that Augusten Burroughs' memoirs has placed them, but RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is riddled with a progressive foray into unstable ground that ceases to be funny and becomes an exercise in irritation and all the time it treads the very delicate waters that is the relationship which develops between a thirteen year old Augusten (Joseph Cross) and Cox's thirty-three year old 'adopted' son (Joseph Fiennes). (That, in fact, would have made a much better film had it focused on this aspect, but having Cross, already twenty, playing a young teen, is a too "safe" to be involving.
And neither is the overlapping among of drama that unfolds here. There is, in fact, too much of it going on here at the same time, and while all of them peak at a fantastic montage to Al Stewart's languid "The Year of the Cat" (the best part of the movie), there isn't much else that warrants pondering. Just when characters seem to become sympathetic, they reverse into types that belong in the most lurid tale of excess ever told. Much like a similar movie -- WAH WAH -- this is too much noise, too much theatricality, eccentricity, and not enough believability. But oh hell -- it's still a perverse incursion into schadenfreude.
For the most part, the movie is well written, and even small, nearly thankless parts, such as the one the once-great Jill Clayburgh plays, have enough life to stand on their own in the bizarro world that Augusten Burroughs' memoirs has placed them, but RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is riddled with a progressive foray into unstable ground that ceases to be funny and becomes an exercise in irritation and all the time it treads the very delicate waters that is the relationship which develops between a thirteen year old Augusten (Joseph Cross) and Cox's thirty-three year old 'adopted' son (Joseph Fiennes). (That, in fact, would have made a much better film had it focused on this aspect, but having Cross, already twenty, playing a young teen, is a too "safe" to be involving.
And neither is the overlapping among of drama that unfolds here. There is, in fact, too much of it going on here at the same time, and while all of them peak at a fantastic montage to Al Stewart's languid "The Year of the Cat" (the best part of the movie), there isn't much else that warrants pondering. Just when characters seem to become sympathetic, they reverse into types that belong in the most lurid tale of excess ever told. Much like a similar movie -- WAH WAH -- this is too much noise, too much theatricality, eccentricity, and not enough believability. But oh hell -- it's still a perverse incursion into schadenfreude.
A twisted family story with plenty of showy performances by the cast.
kennio18 October 2006
A pretty sick twisted story of a boy caught in a family of alcohol abuse, drugs and mental illness AND it's a comedy! It is hard to watch in spots knowing that it is apparently true. Ultimately it is a story of survival. The director said after the screening I saw that the guy who wrote the autobiographical book on which the movie was based did not want the characters demonized... so even a pedophile looks like an OK kind of guy.
Annette Bening may get some recognition for the role. She is totally un-retouched with no makeup and plays the part as someone who makes bad decisions not as a crazy woman...although she is spinning out of control. Can anyone tell me why Gwyneth Paltrow takes small weird parts like this? Her career is chock full of throwaway parts.
Annette Bening may get some recognition for the role. She is totally un-retouched with no makeup and plays the part as someone who makes bad decisions not as a crazy woman...although she is spinning out of control. Can anyone tell me why Gwyneth Paltrow takes small weird parts like this? Her career is chock full of throwaway parts.
my second favorite movie this year! *spoilers*
funnyobbunny28 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Running with Scissors wasn't what I thought it would be. Although it was disappointing at times the hilarious dialogue made up for it. Augusten Burroghs is sent to live with the crazy Finch family where he soon learns to grow up and take chances. The movie is an emotional roller-coaster going from good to bad in seconds. Most of it comes from Diedre, Augustens crazy mother who is many times drugged by Dr.Finch and taken to a motel. Many scenes just make you laugh because they're so sad, for instance In a scene where Augusten and Natalie are making a skylight over the kitchen. You bounce from the two, to Diedre, to Neil Bookman where they all scream simultaneously which makes the scene unforgettable. Readers of the book will either be disappointed or will love it. I for one thought it was a 50/50, it wasn't as strong as I thought it would be but it was still a great film.
I give it a ten because I'm still laughing over the movie..
I give it a ten because I'm still laughing over the movie..
Horrendous
vinny-5223 October 2006
Let me state this first: I never walk out of movies. However, after enduring an hour's worth of this I was forced to. A recurring theme in the beginning of the movie is Annette Bening's character ranting about her husband trying to get her to kill herself. This quite fittingly foreshadows what we as the audience are about to experience. No character is likable, with the exception of the (Alec Baldwin father) who leaves the insanity, as any sensible person would do when confronted with these people. I can't identify with any of the characters, and although the movie is marketed as being funny because of their absurdity, it deliberately avoids possible humor in numerous cases. Yes, it takes itself quite seriously. For a vastly superior film about dysfunction, please go see the excellent Little Miss Sunshine.
I realize that this movie is based on a memoir, and is more or less a true story. However, even if it happened to be a compelling tale on paper, it does not translate well at all to film. Instead it becomes like that cocktail party story we have all heard. You know, the one that seems really funny to the person telling it, but everyone else finds it quite dull because they apparently are not in on the joke. Do not see this movie.
I realize that this movie is based on a memoir, and is more or less a true story. However, even if it happened to be a compelling tale on paper, it does not translate well at all to film. Instead it becomes like that cocktail party story we have all heard. You know, the one that seems really funny to the person telling it, but everyone else finds it quite dull because they apparently are not in on the joke. Do not see this movie.
Love, Pain And Hair
alanbittencourtx21 December 2007
Irritating at times but only at times when the writer, director, producer puts himself in front of the camera and all we see it's him. But, most of the time this is a surprising, smart comedy of pains with a sensational Annette Bening - her best performance without a doubt - her disintegration is, apart from everything else, shattering and absurdly entertaining. She descends her psychic road wrecking havoc wherever she wants to do "the best thing for you". Under the effects of the medication and the advise of her con-shrink she slides away, brilliantly. Alec Baldwin has three little moments that he manages to wrap with so much truth that his character lingers in my mind. Well, there you are, I'm talking about the performances because that's what makes this movie really fly. Jill Claybourgh, Joseph Finnes, Brian Cox, Gwynneth Paltrow, Evan Rachel Wood and Joseph Cross with his literary future and his thing for hair, they all transform this stranger than fiction real life tale into something memorable, yes, memorable. I don't quite understand why this film was so mistreated by critic and public alike. I found more rewarding elements here than in most of what 2006 had to offer at the movies. Give it a try.
Unrelenting, suffocating depression
editor-29925 October 2006
Warning: Spoilers
One has to balance the several fine performances with the most depressing screenplay of the year if one is to gain any kind of satisfaction from "Running With Scissors," the debut directorial effort from Ryan Murphy (TV series "Nip & Tuck") about a dysfunctional (with a capital "D") family.
In fact, it's like "American Beauty" without the laughs; "Ordinary People" without the good-hearted highjinks; "Taxi Driver" without the singing and dancing. If one's deepest, darkest, most foreboding psychosis had cinematography, this movie would be it.
This autobiographical tale of Augusten Burroughs (20-year-old Joseph Cross, "Flags of Our Fathers," playing a 15-year-old and not very convincingly), the son of a violent alcoholic, Norman (Alec Baldwin) and a delusional, psychotic mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening) growing up in the 1970s, tries to walk a black comedy line - but cannot straddle it very well - often relying on just plain unabashed weirdness.
Convinced by her equally loony psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox, "Red Eye," Emmy winner for "Nuremberg") to turn Augusten over to his custody; the young man meets the doctor's ridiculous family; haggard, brow-beaten wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh, "An Unmarried Woman") and his two daughters, prudish ice queen, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow, "Proof") and teenage slut, Natalie (Rachel Evan Ward, "The Missing," "Upside Of Anger"), who all live in a pink house Herman Munster would have condemned.
He's also successfully propositioned by 35-year-old psycho (okay, EVERYONE is a psycho in this film, let's just establish that right now) named Bookman (Joseph Fiennes, "Shakespeare In Love," "The Great Raid," looking like Ben Stiller in "Dodgeball").
It's an unrelenting, suffocating kind of depression that never lets up, even for small moments of extremely dark comedy (Hope starves a cat too death, Finch is enamored with feces, Bookman's screeching anti-nun poetry and Deirdre's often hilarious slippage into insanity).
It has a great soundtrack, however, of 1970s hit, including "Benny and the Jets," "Blinded By the Light" and "Year of the Cat." And, as the wackiest of all wacky mothers, Bening is sure to garner an Oscar nomination, and her (way over-the-top) performance may actually even earn her first award.
Her work is probably the only reason to see this. You won't smile while watching it, though, you'll just walk away thinking (no matter what condition you're in) what a great life YOU have.
In fact, it's like "American Beauty" without the laughs; "Ordinary People" without the good-hearted highjinks; "Taxi Driver" without the singing and dancing. If one's deepest, darkest, most foreboding psychosis had cinematography, this movie would be it.
This autobiographical tale of Augusten Burroughs (20-year-old Joseph Cross, "Flags of Our Fathers," playing a 15-year-old and not very convincingly), the son of a violent alcoholic, Norman (Alec Baldwin) and a delusional, psychotic mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening) growing up in the 1970s, tries to walk a black comedy line - but cannot straddle it very well - often relying on just plain unabashed weirdness.
Convinced by her equally loony psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox, "Red Eye," Emmy winner for "Nuremberg") to turn Augusten over to his custody; the young man meets the doctor's ridiculous family; haggard, brow-beaten wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh, "An Unmarried Woman") and his two daughters, prudish ice queen, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow, "Proof") and teenage slut, Natalie (Rachel Evan Ward, "The Missing," "Upside Of Anger"), who all live in a pink house Herman Munster would have condemned.
He's also successfully propositioned by 35-year-old psycho (okay, EVERYONE is a psycho in this film, let's just establish that right now) named Bookman (Joseph Fiennes, "Shakespeare In Love," "The Great Raid," looking like Ben Stiller in "Dodgeball").
It's an unrelenting, suffocating kind of depression that never lets up, even for small moments of extremely dark comedy (Hope starves a cat too death, Finch is enamored with feces, Bookman's screeching anti-nun poetry and Deirdre's often hilarious slippage into insanity).
It has a great soundtrack, however, of 1970s hit, including "Benny and the Jets," "Blinded By the Light" and "Year of the Cat." And, as the wackiest of all wacky mothers, Bening is sure to garner an Oscar nomination, and her (way over-the-top) performance may actually even earn her first award.
Her work is probably the only reason to see this. You won't smile while watching it, though, you'll just walk away thinking (no matter what condition you're in) what a great life YOU have.
Left me cold
whitnall29 October 2006
I would have left the movie halfway through if I hadn't been with people who liked it. The movie is based on real incidents, but it's so over the top it didn't feel real at all. I have some psychological background, hang out with a lot of psychotherapists, and have known seriously crazy people, so it's not that I think people like this don't exist. But in the film, the only characters who seemed consistently human were Augusten's father (Alec Baldwin) and the young Augusten (Jack Kaedin). (Although Evan Rachel Wood was an intriguing diversion - very sexy with a wicked sense of fun). There were a few amusing moments, but the overall tone of the movie was grim, bizarre, and nasty. What a waste of an outstanding cast! As I watched them go through their turns, I just felt like I was watching an acting class. This was brought home during the credits, when a couple of people were shown just sitting there, not acting, not talking. Those few moments were more entertaining than the previous 2 hours.
Augusten And The Flip Side Of Wonderland
marcosaguado21 December 2007
The true story of Augusten Burroughs's beginnings, sound like a demented work of fiction. That's true of most true things. Here, putting aside what's real and what may be a figment of Augusten's imagination, there is a movie. A slightly confused, a bit pretentious but unquestionably fun movie with some high caliber actors at the top of their game. Annette Bening to start with, extraordinary and without clinging to one of her delightful giggles. She is a magnificent, deplorable human spectacle. Reconizable and yet totally alien. Her character is in her way down from the word go and she (Annette or Deidre)don't shy away from the most devastating human blows. She is surrounded by a beautifully designed human zoo of extreme characters. They carry their eccentricities like badges of honor. Brian Cox, superb as the Dickensian know-it-all, his daughters , Evan Rachel Wood and the magnificent Gwynneth Paltrow who can tell you more with half a look than with two pages of exposition. Jill Claybourgh! Goodness gracious me! Where has she been? She's the throbbing heart of the matter, dog food an all. Her sanity, hidden behind a demented, neglected hairdo, is as real as Joseph Cross' Augusten Burroughs. Joseph Finnes's gorgeous nut doesn't have a great deal of sexual chemistry with his under age lover but maybe he wasn't suppose to. As if all this wasn't enough, Alec Baldwin, giving one of the best performances of his career in a character who's on the screen for only a few minutes. Woody Allen, John Irvin even Eugene Ionesco and Frank Perry are present in this engaging display of human frailty. Terrific surprise.
Coming of age that cuts through the gags
Chris_Docker3 February 2007
Do you ever wonder where the games we play as children come from? Or what they mean? When I was a child, my mother taught me a game - you maybe know it - called 'rock, paper, scissors'. Your choice is matched against the other kids and you see who wins. Rock can crush scissors, paper can wrap rock, scissors can cut paper.
Running With Scissors has lots of games. And childishly clever characters. Lots of screwed up people. Nice, wealthy, eccentric, dysfunctional, screwed up people. Go play.
Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) remembers what it was like to be a kid. Adults always had the upper hand with crazy screwed up games. Like his mom, Deirdre (Annette Bening), playing at being a poet. She had bipolar delusions of grandeur or something. Dad (Alec Baldwin) plays quite well at living in the real world. Except mom's psychiatrist, the crazy Dr Finch (who maybe fancies her) says dad's a homicidal maniac so he had to go. Finch (Brian Cox) asked her about her bowel movements, found they were symbolic of her constipated life, got her to admit she has suicidal thoughts after sex with Dad, and gave her Valium. Augusten secretly imitates mom, standing in front of a microphone and thanking a large imaginary audience for coming to his poetry reading. They end up joining Finch's extended family (including happily eccentric Gwyneth Paltrow, luscious Evan Rachel Wood, and long-enduring wife Jill Clayburgh) in the doctor's chaotic, rundown mansion.
Up to this point, Running With Scissors has been reminiscent of writer-director Ryan Murphy's TV success, Nip/Tuck. The pampered characters enjoy the luxury of unbelievably weird neuroses and why not. There's always a suitable specialist to minister to the needs of the unbearably vain. Even the specialist can have bizarre idiosyncrasies if they have enough bits of paper and high fees. Finch has a 'masturbatorium' next to his office, which he is quite happy to show Deirdre and her husband - the room that is. Each time we are tempted to think it is an intellectual gross-out, we wonder if he is really using skillful psychological techniques to enable his patients to release their inner anxiety/creativity/pent-up sexuality or whatever. He can run rings around the audience as easily as his patients.
Once inside the squalor and chaos of the Finch household, any pretence to normality evaporates. Finch is 'normal' because he's in charge, respected, and a doctor after all. Most of the family talk varyingly watered-down versions of his psychobabble. Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood) flirts with Augusten using a version of doctors-and-nurses plus an antique electric-shock therapy machine. Only Augusten pretends to be his Mom and Natalie pretends to be her Doctor (mimicking the scene in another room). When disturbed, she calmly explains to Dad that Augusten has a repressed neurosis that they need to dig deeper to release - quite day-to-day stuff.
An infuriating aspect of Running With Scissors is we never quite know what genre it is or what will happen next. Almost anticipating our unease, Augusten at one point asserts, "I want rules because without them life is just a series of surprises." We treat it as mock-naïve comedy, looking for things to latch onto and finding something different, usually amusing. But after an hour or so we want something more substantial than intellectual screwball. Whether it can deliver perhaps depends on how much effort you make, and especially if you can give it your full attention after it temptingly outstays its welcome.
Was Deirdre really the headcase she seems? Consider the intelligence with which she lambasts her fellow poets, the mental acuity before the drugs set in. Is Augusten's father anything except normal? Why should Augusten turn out badly, and does he? To escape from the mystery, clues fall like scenes from a film noir. Finch's first appearance is almost in monochrome (to a Latin version of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps). Whatever he is, he is unaffected by the colourfully disorientating shifts of mood. Later we see the same muted colours surrounding a slightly older Augusten. Deirdre aspires to be on stage in a black dress against black velvet curtains.
Much of the film recalls the oddball characters of The Royal Tenenbaums (links with Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin may be quite intentional). The characters here are less lovable than the Tenenbaums and many in the audience will cut and run before the denouement. The trick of running with scissors is not to fall on them in the process. In his complex coming-of-age drama, Augusten does that remarkably well. Teach Your Children, as the Crosby, Stills and Nash song says. Even if you don't know how.
Running With Scissors has lots of games. And childishly clever characters. Lots of screwed up people. Nice, wealthy, eccentric, dysfunctional, screwed up people. Go play.
Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) remembers what it was like to be a kid. Adults always had the upper hand with crazy screwed up games. Like his mom, Deirdre (Annette Bening), playing at being a poet. She had bipolar delusions of grandeur or something. Dad (Alec Baldwin) plays quite well at living in the real world. Except mom's psychiatrist, the crazy Dr Finch (who maybe fancies her) says dad's a homicidal maniac so he had to go. Finch (Brian Cox) asked her about her bowel movements, found they were symbolic of her constipated life, got her to admit she has suicidal thoughts after sex with Dad, and gave her Valium. Augusten secretly imitates mom, standing in front of a microphone and thanking a large imaginary audience for coming to his poetry reading. They end up joining Finch's extended family (including happily eccentric Gwyneth Paltrow, luscious Evan Rachel Wood, and long-enduring wife Jill Clayburgh) in the doctor's chaotic, rundown mansion.
Up to this point, Running With Scissors has been reminiscent of writer-director Ryan Murphy's TV success, Nip/Tuck. The pampered characters enjoy the luxury of unbelievably weird neuroses and why not. There's always a suitable specialist to minister to the needs of the unbearably vain. Even the specialist can have bizarre idiosyncrasies if they have enough bits of paper and high fees. Finch has a 'masturbatorium' next to his office, which he is quite happy to show Deirdre and her husband - the room that is. Each time we are tempted to think it is an intellectual gross-out, we wonder if he is really using skillful psychological techniques to enable his patients to release their inner anxiety/creativity/pent-up sexuality or whatever. He can run rings around the audience as easily as his patients.
Once inside the squalor and chaos of the Finch household, any pretence to normality evaporates. Finch is 'normal' because he's in charge, respected, and a doctor after all. Most of the family talk varyingly watered-down versions of his psychobabble. Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood) flirts with Augusten using a version of doctors-and-nurses plus an antique electric-shock therapy machine. Only Augusten pretends to be his Mom and Natalie pretends to be her Doctor (mimicking the scene in another room). When disturbed, she calmly explains to Dad that Augusten has a repressed neurosis that they need to dig deeper to release - quite day-to-day stuff.
An infuriating aspect of Running With Scissors is we never quite know what genre it is or what will happen next. Almost anticipating our unease, Augusten at one point asserts, "I want rules because without them life is just a series of surprises." We treat it as mock-naïve comedy, looking for things to latch onto and finding something different, usually amusing. But after an hour or so we want something more substantial than intellectual screwball. Whether it can deliver perhaps depends on how much effort you make, and especially if you can give it your full attention after it temptingly outstays its welcome.
Was Deirdre really the headcase she seems? Consider the intelligence with which she lambasts her fellow poets, the mental acuity before the drugs set in. Is Augusten's father anything except normal? Why should Augusten turn out badly, and does he? To escape from the mystery, clues fall like scenes from a film noir. Finch's first appearance is almost in monochrome (to a Latin version of Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps). Whatever he is, he is unaffected by the colourfully disorientating shifts of mood. Later we see the same muted colours surrounding a slightly older Augusten. Deirdre aspires to be on stage in a black dress against black velvet curtains.
Much of the film recalls the oddball characters of The Royal Tenenbaums (links with Gwyneth Paltrow and Alec Baldwin may be quite intentional). The characters here are less lovable than the Tenenbaums and many in the audience will cut and run before the denouement. The trick of running with scissors is not to fall on them in the process. In his complex coming-of-age drama, Augusten does that remarkably well. Teach Your Children, as the Crosby, Stills and Nash song says. Even if you don't know how.
Well, it takes all kinds
alvingrung5 January 2007
to make up a movie-going audience - I'm certainly stunned by the number of positive comments this wretched film has garnered here. I can't credit it, can't help but be suspicious, for that matter, of back alley payoffs to critics who are touting Annette Bening for an Oscar; the hole in the kitchen ceiling might be more appropriately attributed to her scenery chewing. She's a wonderful actress but this is an unfortunately unbalanced performance, lacking that essential quality film actors must master of catching the cadence of the screenplay and maintaining it for the duration of the disjointed madness that is a film shoot.
I don't really want to blame Miss Bening or most of the other performers (well, Gwyneth Paltrow has no excuse for her muzzy work), however, because this is a horrendous adaptation, a classic case of mistranslation (I am prepared to assume. I haven't read the book and don't think I will after this). The script launches us into the middle/muddle of unaccountable behaviour and extreme emotional angst spewing from mystifying characters who have developed relationships neither with us nor each other. It quickly becomes a grotesquely excessive tsunami-like assault that sullies characters and audience alike and left me like a survivor shaking my head at the detritus left at the end of each repetitive episode. Shock and awe would describe my reaction to frantic, bi-polar mood swings between ranting and oh-so-quiet sensitivity, the latter telegraphed by one of the most irritating, manipulative, droning soundtracks I've heard - that is, when all this isn't being set to ludicrously incongruous toons - period stuff, ya know, but chosen with an astounding disregard for the tone of the scenes.
How this fine cast got mixed up in this I don't know - I can't believe they saw the screenplay before signing. They certainly apply their skills with commitment - I felt so sorry for the wonderful Jill Clayburgh saddled with a cartoon bag lady costume and wig trying vainly to wrench something of significance from sketchy and clichéd dialogue. In contrast, somehow, Alec Baldwin rises above the material to deliver a consistent, nuanced, real performance. Can somebody give this man a lead role of substance, please? And how about Rachel Evan Wood - or Joseph Fiennes? You'd think the industry could make better use of him, and without appearing as hirsute as Elliot Gould in M.A.S.H.
My vote? A standup turd, all right, but no link with heaven.
I don't really want to blame Miss Bening or most of the other performers (well, Gwyneth Paltrow has no excuse for her muzzy work), however, because this is a horrendous adaptation, a classic case of mistranslation (I am prepared to assume. I haven't read the book and don't think I will after this). The script launches us into the middle/muddle of unaccountable behaviour and extreme emotional angst spewing from mystifying characters who have developed relationships neither with us nor each other. It quickly becomes a grotesquely excessive tsunami-like assault that sullies characters and audience alike and left me like a survivor shaking my head at the detritus left at the end of each repetitive episode. Shock and awe would describe my reaction to frantic, bi-polar mood swings between ranting and oh-so-quiet sensitivity, the latter telegraphed by one of the most irritating, manipulative, droning soundtracks I've heard - that is, when all this isn't being set to ludicrously incongruous toons - period stuff, ya know, but chosen with an astounding disregard for the tone of the scenes.
How this fine cast got mixed up in this I don't know - I can't believe they saw the screenplay before signing. They certainly apply their skills with commitment - I felt so sorry for the wonderful Jill Clayburgh saddled with a cartoon bag lady costume and wig trying vainly to wrench something of significance from sketchy and clichéd dialogue. In contrast, somehow, Alec Baldwin rises above the material to deliver a consistent, nuanced, real performance. Can somebody give this man a lead role of substance, please? And how about Rachel Evan Wood - or Joseph Fiennes? You'd think the industry could make better use of him, and without appearing as hirsute as Elliot Gould in M.A.S.H.
My vote? A standup turd, all right, but no link with heaven.
In the spirit but not the success of Royal Tenenbaums
JohnDeSando25 October 2006
"The 'family' has clearly emerged anew in the late 1970s as a central subject for discussion, debate, research and writing in both scholarly and popular arenas. Anxiety over whether or not the family as a basic social institution is dying has diminished. In its stead has emerged a fairly broad consensus around the position that the family is "here to stay," but that it certainly is changing." Sheila B. Kamerman
"Where do I begin to tell the story of how my mother left me, and then I left her?" This promising opening, narrated by Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross), is followed by a scene in his 1972 Massachusetts home with his mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening) reciting tepid poetry composed for sending to The New Yorker into a microphone at a mock poetry reading. After that interesting scene, director Ryan Murphy, adapting the 2002 successful novel of the same name, piles on sometimes funny scenes in the spirit but not the success of Royal Tenenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine.
Eventually given up for adoption to an aging and unstable shrink, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), Augusten samples a fringe life of turd gazing in a toilet, a masturbatiorium room for the doctor, and shock treatments for fun. In all of the seemingly eccentric scenes, there is no character, not even the narrator (played too remotely) who commands sympathy or with whom an audience can identify. Deirdre is too outré to be believable (although Bening is impressive in the devolution of the only possibly sympathetic character), and the doctor would be better played as Cox did the first Hannibal Lecter.
The minor characters such as Evan Rachel Wood's Natalie seem to exist for amusement rather than touchstones for what makes this house dysfunctional. The connections of love or even hate among family members do not bind as they did for the Tenenbaums. After a while, no jokey set up garners a laugh. What does happen, though, is a desire to go to the book to enjoy the faultless deadpan narration that endears readers to Augusten.
"Where do I begin to tell the story of how my mother left me, and then I left her?" This promising opening, narrated by Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross), is followed by a scene in his 1972 Massachusetts home with his mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening) reciting tepid poetry composed for sending to The New Yorker into a microphone at a mock poetry reading. After that interesting scene, director Ryan Murphy, adapting the 2002 successful novel of the same name, piles on sometimes funny scenes in the spirit but not the success of Royal Tenenbaums and Little Miss Sunshine.
Eventually given up for adoption to an aging and unstable shrink, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), Augusten samples a fringe life of turd gazing in a toilet, a masturbatiorium room for the doctor, and shock treatments for fun. In all of the seemingly eccentric scenes, there is no character, not even the narrator (played too remotely) who commands sympathy or with whom an audience can identify. Deirdre is too outré to be believable (although Bening is impressive in the devolution of the only possibly sympathetic character), and the doctor would be better played as Cox did the first Hannibal Lecter.
The minor characters such as Evan Rachel Wood's Natalie seem to exist for amusement rather than touchstones for what makes this house dysfunctional. The connections of love or even hate among family members do not bind as they did for the Tenenbaums. After a while, no jokey set up garners a laugh. What does happen, though, is a desire to go to the book to enjoy the faultless deadpan narration that endears readers to Augusten.
Madding attempt to put the fun in dysfunctional family bio-pic; Bening is Oscar worthy
george.schmidt16 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (2006) ** Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Cross, Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow, Gabrielle Union, Patrick Wilson, Kristin Chenoweth, Dagmara Dominczyk, Colleen Camp, Jack Kaeding. Listless adaptation of the biographical novel by Augusten Burroughs (played with guileless aplomb by newcomer Cross) who collaborated on the screenplay with the director Ryan Murphy and his life of misery sparked by his eccentric and mentally unbalanced free-spirit mother (Bening in an Oscar worthy performance making a complex and unsympathetic character full-blooded instead of camp), a 'creative type' who self-aggrandizes herself to be a genius writer to the point of mania resulting in her dumping her only child into the crazy family of her shrink (Cox), a quack with many odd methods and questionable practices. While the film tries to sustain some sort of crazy quilt of weirdo characterizations it becomes a bit maddening to find anyone to empathize (or recognize) to contain interest in all the ugliness that ensues.
Nightmare On Shrink Street
aimless-464 September 2008
Based on Augusten Burroughs' 2002 memoir about his dysfunctional childhood, "Running With Scissors" (2006), is like a blend of "The Upside of Anger"(2005) and "Tideland" (2005). The film was not commercial enough for widespread theatrical release but has built up a decent size cult following and probably sold some books. If you don't like the film (or at least relate to it) it is probably because your family was not dysfunctional enough.
As Paul Newman discovered when he made "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972), stories about mentally disturbed mothers engaging in screaming matches don't make for upbeat movies; even with a theme of a child successfully overcoming adversity. So director Ryan Murphy was tasked by his producer with the objective of lightening up his screen adaptation of "Scissors." Unfortunately he was not entirely successful and the obvious comedic elements are awkwardly inserted and don't really work, as comedy anyway.
Fortunately (at least for those able to relate to the film) his production designer and his post-production team save the day and the film achieves a nice lyrical quality. So watch for those moments that work best. These are the intricately edited montages matched to the playing of popular songs from the period (the film is set in the 1970's) including "Bennie and the Jets", "The Year of the Cat", and "Blinded by the Light". My favorite is the match-cut screams at about the midway point of the story. The film's final credits go out to "Teach Your Children", a little too obvious perhaps but a good match with the ironic tone that flows throughout the film.
Momma's boy Augusten (Joseph Cross) is sent to live with his mother's well-intentioned but deeply disturbed psychiatrist Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), so basket case Mom (Annette Bening) can be properly sedated and focus on her bad poetry. Dr. Finch's household is a product of his own extreme weirdness, and is housed in a dilapidated pink mansion under the constant threat of IRS repossession. Rebellious daughter Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood basically playing her "Upside of Anger" character but with mega eye makeup), her Bible-directed sister (Gwyneth Paltrow-who nicely teases this role), his kibble-snacking wife Agnes (nicely underplayed by Jill Clayburgh), and a 35 year-old prone to violence adopted son (Joseph Fiennes).
Augusten's mother is not a one dimensional Mommie Dearest. She's a complicated bundle of unfulfilled ambition with the occasional lucid moments when she is not pumped full tranquilizers. As the story moves forward she goes from being an Auntie Mame toward her adoring child to a self-absorbed free spirit. There is an anti-permissiveness subtext in much of this, with Augusten yearning for rules and structure in place of constant (usually unpleasant) surprises.
Everyone in the cast delivers first-rate performances. If you can relate to the material, focus in on the best individual sequences, and overlook the director's inability to find a precise focus you should enjoy the film.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
As Paul Newman discovered when he made "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (1972), stories about mentally disturbed mothers engaging in screaming matches don't make for upbeat movies; even with a theme of a child successfully overcoming adversity. So director Ryan Murphy was tasked by his producer with the objective of lightening up his screen adaptation of "Scissors." Unfortunately he was not entirely successful and the obvious comedic elements are awkwardly inserted and don't really work, as comedy anyway.
Fortunately (at least for those able to relate to the film) his production designer and his post-production team save the day and the film achieves a nice lyrical quality. So watch for those moments that work best. These are the intricately edited montages matched to the playing of popular songs from the period (the film is set in the 1970's) including "Bennie and the Jets", "The Year of the Cat", and "Blinded by the Light". My favorite is the match-cut screams at about the midway point of the story. The film's final credits go out to "Teach Your Children", a little too obvious perhaps but a good match with the ironic tone that flows throughout the film.
Momma's boy Augusten (Joseph Cross) is sent to live with his mother's well-intentioned but deeply disturbed psychiatrist Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), so basket case Mom (Annette Bening) can be properly sedated and focus on her bad poetry. Dr. Finch's household is a product of his own extreme weirdness, and is housed in a dilapidated pink mansion under the constant threat of IRS repossession. Rebellious daughter Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood basically playing her "Upside of Anger" character but with mega eye makeup), her Bible-directed sister (Gwyneth Paltrow-who nicely teases this role), his kibble-snacking wife Agnes (nicely underplayed by Jill Clayburgh), and a 35 year-old prone to violence adopted son (Joseph Fiennes).
Augusten's mother is not a one dimensional Mommie Dearest. She's a complicated bundle of unfulfilled ambition with the occasional lucid moments when she is not pumped full tranquilizers. As the story moves forward she goes from being an Auntie Mame toward her adoring child to a self-absorbed free spirit. There is an anti-permissiveness subtext in much of this, with Augusten yearning for rules and structure in place of constant (usually unpleasant) surprises.
Everyone in the cast delivers first-rate performances. If you can relate to the material, focus in on the best individual sequences, and overlook the director's inability to find a precise focus you should enjoy the film.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
A Poor Translation
survivorofakuze2 November 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I don't really like the idea of comparing the book to the movie, but in this case I find it inevitable. I read the book and loved it, but the movie just doesn't have the same skill....
For one thing, the movie really downplayed the oddity of the everything that went on, which was really what made the memoir so detail-oriented and real, I think. But the people who made the movie just didn't have the same skill with *their* craft....
For one thing, it was a little off to cast an actor like Alec Baldwin to be the father, who had such a minimal role, really. It also seemed at times like too much emphasis was placed on the mother-- in film I suppose it's easier to place emphasis on an adult, rather than a child (a child actor), but the whole thing was supposed to be about Augusten....
I really think they should have considered using voiceovers/narration by Augusten to give some depth to his point-of-view, giving something to his own narrations and insights like in the book, rather than just showing him on the edge of the scene....
Without that deep feel for the characters idiosyncrasies and the individuality of the memoirist, it's just.... boring.
They just show flatly this one doing this and that one doing that, but there's just no real appreciation for how crazy it all was.
.... It sounds stupid and obvious to say that it should have been more like the book, but it really should have been.
(7/10)
For one thing, the movie really downplayed the oddity of the everything that went on, which was really what made the memoir so detail-oriented and real, I think. But the people who made the movie just didn't have the same skill with *their* craft....
For one thing, it was a little off to cast an actor like Alec Baldwin to be the father, who had such a minimal role, really. It also seemed at times like too much emphasis was placed on the mother-- in film I suppose it's easier to place emphasis on an adult, rather than a child (a child actor), but the whole thing was supposed to be about Augusten....
I really think they should have considered using voiceovers/narration by Augusten to give some depth to his point-of-view, giving something to his own narrations and insights like in the book, rather than just showing him on the edge of the scene....
Without that deep feel for the characters idiosyncrasies and the individuality of the memoirist, it's just.... boring.
They just show flatly this one doing this and that one doing that, but there's just no real appreciation for how crazy it all was.
.... It sounds stupid and obvious to say that it should have been more like the book, but it really should have been.
(7/10)
Nominated for best razzie award, for most suicidal attempts after being watched.
grebeccak12 February 2007
I just want to say that this movie sucks. The preview for this movie is so much better than the movie. I had wanted to see this movie so bad when it was in the theater but my boyfriend did not want to go because he thought it would suck. I was so happy when I rented to the DVD because I thought I would prove him wrong and instead I wasted 4 bucks. IT IS NOT WORTH SEEING
..I really thought this movie would be funny but it was depressing and not in the usual way. This movie was so boring I thought I was going to shoot myself.
I have to type two more lines. I was also disappointed with Gwenth Paltrow she was almost funny. I guess I am upset that the preview was so misleading just like in the preview for that Dennis Quiad and Sharon Stone movie.
I have to type two more lines. I was also disappointed with Gwenth Paltrow she was almost funny. I guess I am upset that the preview was so misleading just like in the preview for that Dennis Quiad and Sharon Stone movie.
The movie critics should be ashamed! An underrated, magnificent film!
roskopop200422 December 2007
If ever a movie taught me not to let critics influence my decision to see something, this is it.
I remember when this came out in the theater and the overall consensus of the major critics was that this film was a huge disappointment, if not a complete failure. Wow. (scratches head)
Having been a huge fan of the book (I read it twice before I saw the film) I went to see it anyway without high expectations, and was surprised to say the least. I love this film, and it brought me to tears several times. And like other posters, I thought that it was a rare film adaptation that does justice to the book and then some.
Aside from the fact the film remains true to the book, which will please many fans, the performances are excellent across the board. Annette Bening, in my humble opinion, was robbed of an Oscar nomination. She delivers nothing less than a tour-de-force. I mean, it truly amazes me how she was overlooked along with this whole movie. And Joseph Cross should have had a nomination as well. He shines the light and the heartbreak in this boy with dead-on accuracy. This is a remarkable story that I guess is hard to believe for many people, even in the strange, dysfunctional world we live in. I think all of the actors made this story truly believable. Even Gwyneth, who has very little screen time unfortunately, makes the most of it, with a wonderfully low-key, quirky turn. Her scene cooking "the stew", in braids, is one of my favorite moments. And how could they not notice Jill Clayburgh??!! She manages to ground this story, ironically, with sanity. She conveys grace and maternal love and kindness, wringing these emotions from an almost grotesquely-written character. No easy feat. I will admit Evan Rachel Wood is the only actor I felt was a bit miscast if you are being true to the book. She's just cooler and sexier than I imagined the character to be. But she reminded me of someone else i grew up with in an uncanny way, that's how good she is at balancing smart and damaged, as a girl who grew up too fast for her own good, but somehow manages to prevail. I loved her nonetheless, just in a different way than I did in the book.
The pacing, the tone, the lighting, the music, the respect the director showed this story is really stunning as well. Anyone who grew up in the late 70's (like myself) in a dysfunctional home with a rather eccentric mother will probably experience this as movie magic, and feel uncomfortably at home watching this, like being transported back in time. You may even smell your mother's shag carpeting and scented candles like I did. The clothing the characters are wearing, especially Augusten, made me feel like I was back in grade school myself...wearing a polyester plaid vest and tie and out-of-synch with my peers. The imagery really rang true for me, along with "Your the poetry man" playing in the background.
Maybe the problem was that not a lot of people can relate to this story, and it seems too preposterous for them to even suspend their disbelief for a couple of hours? I've never felt compelled to write a commentary up here until now because I really believe this work was done an injustice by the critics. However I don't think, as a viewer, you would necessarily need to relate to this story to enjoy the film. But I can't help but wonder if I'm wrong about that, because it might explain the poor reception from so many critics.
I also trust completely that over time many will discover this movie and be moved to both laughter and tears, and be completely absorbed in it. It's a twisted, sometimes hilarious but mostly heartbreaking tale, based on true events, and it is, in my opinion, a beautiful film. It's a gem.
I remember when this came out in the theater and the overall consensus of the major critics was that this film was a huge disappointment, if not a complete failure. Wow. (scratches head)
Having been a huge fan of the book (I read it twice before I saw the film) I went to see it anyway without high expectations, and was surprised to say the least. I love this film, and it brought me to tears several times. And like other posters, I thought that it was a rare film adaptation that does justice to the book and then some.
Aside from the fact the film remains true to the book, which will please many fans, the performances are excellent across the board. Annette Bening, in my humble opinion, was robbed of an Oscar nomination. She delivers nothing less than a tour-de-force. I mean, it truly amazes me how she was overlooked along with this whole movie. And Joseph Cross should have had a nomination as well. He shines the light and the heartbreak in this boy with dead-on accuracy. This is a remarkable story that I guess is hard to believe for many people, even in the strange, dysfunctional world we live in. I think all of the actors made this story truly believable. Even Gwyneth, who has very little screen time unfortunately, makes the most of it, with a wonderfully low-key, quirky turn. Her scene cooking "the stew", in braids, is one of my favorite moments. And how could they not notice Jill Clayburgh??!! She manages to ground this story, ironically, with sanity. She conveys grace and maternal love and kindness, wringing these emotions from an almost grotesquely-written character. No easy feat. I will admit Evan Rachel Wood is the only actor I felt was a bit miscast if you are being true to the book. She's just cooler and sexier than I imagined the character to be. But she reminded me of someone else i grew up with in an uncanny way, that's how good she is at balancing smart and damaged, as a girl who grew up too fast for her own good, but somehow manages to prevail. I loved her nonetheless, just in a different way than I did in the book.
The pacing, the tone, the lighting, the music, the respect the director showed this story is really stunning as well. Anyone who grew up in the late 70's (like myself) in a dysfunctional home with a rather eccentric mother will probably experience this as movie magic, and feel uncomfortably at home watching this, like being transported back in time. You may even smell your mother's shag carpeting and scented candles like I did. The clothing the characters are wearing, especially Augusten, made me feel like I was back in grade school myself...wearing a polyester plaid vest and tie and out-of-synch with my peers. The imagery really rang true for me, along with "Your the poetry man" playing in the background.
Maybe the problem was that not a lot of people can relate to this story, and it seems too preposterous for them to even suspend their disbelief for a couple of hours? I've never felt compelled to write a commentary up here until now because I really believe this work was done an injustice by the critics. However I don't think, as a viewer, you would necessarily need to relate to this story to enjoy the film. But I can't help but wonder if I'm wrong about that, because it might explain the poor reception from so many critics.
I also trust completely that over time many will discover this movie and be moved to both laughter and tears, and be completely absorbed in it. It's a twisted, sometimes hilarious but mostly heartbreaking tale, based on true events, and it is, in my opinion, a beautiful film. It's a gem.
One of those lives
TBJCSKCNRRQTreviews27 June 2010
I haven't read the novel. In fact, I hadn't heard of it, the suspiciously extraordinary life it describes or the controversy that evidently surrounded the release of book and film alike. I don't know if it is true or not, if he experienced all of these things. That's not what I'm here to determine. What I will tell you is that this, while it may not be for all tastes, is an interesting tale and oddly engaging in spite of how difficult it can be to relate to at times. The situation is foreign, living in this bizarre household, abandoned by the mother. I was impressed with the uncompromising psychological accuracy and harshness, and how every single character is so completely human. The cast is great, and they all deliver compelling performances; none of them feel as though they were given the role on account of star power. I did not realize Cross had such range from Untraceable, and am glad that he got to show it here. The music is well-chosen. This has good writing. I haven't watched anything else by Murphy, but I like his style, and will be on the lookout for other efforts by him. This genuinely engaged me, and situations that have been seen before didn't feel clichéd. There is a ton of strong(at times explicit) language, a bit of disturbing content and a little sexuality in this. I recommend it to anyone who can imagine liking it. 7/10
Perhaps the worst film I've ever seen!!!!!
ulTRAX8 April 2007
I had been looking forward to seeing Running With Scissors ever since I'd heard a movie was being made from the book. Not that I knew much about the book but interviews with the author made it sound intriguing. When I rented the DVD and looked at the list of actors I was impressed. How could anything with a star cast including Brian Cox, Annette Bening, Alex Baldwin, and Gwyneth Paltrow be anything but a smashing hit? How wrong I was.
I'm generally not very critical of movies. And it's rare that I hate a film so much that I want to hit the eject button some 10 minutes into a film. The last one was when I rented the Black Dahlia imposter film. Perhaps I watched the whole thing hoping it would all fall together. Perhaps it was only to come to IMDb and see if my opinion was so far off the norm. After reading all the negative comments, I see I'm not.
I still haven't pinned down what I so disliked about this movie. Bening's, Baldwin's, and Cox's performances were adequate to good, but I didn't sympathize with, or find any of the characters in any way credible. And that has to be the problem with this movie. When the material is so marginal, all the lipstick in the world won't change the fact that a pig is a pig. A good soundtrack usually doesn't stand out, it just blends into and enhances a film. I found this soundtrack annoying in the extreme. As for the story line, it goes nowhere and as a story just does not gel. What a god awful mess!!
I can never get my two hours back... but I can make it my mission to warn others not to make the same mistake I did.
I'm generally not very critical of movies. And it's rare that I hate a film so much that I want to hit the eject button some 10 minutes into a film. The last one was when I rented the Black Dahlia imposter film. Perhaps I watched the whole thing hoping it would all fall together. Perhaps it was only to come to IMDb and see if my opinion was so far off the norm. After reading all the negative comments, I see I'm not.
I still haven't pinned down what I so disliked about this movie. Bening's, Baldwin's, and Cox's performances were adequate to good, but I didn't sympathize with, or find any of the characters in any way credible. And that has to be the problem with this movie. When the material is so marginal, all the lipstick in the world won't change the fact that a pig is a pig. A good soundtrack usually doesn't stand out, it just blends into and enhances a film. I found this soundtrack annoying in the extreme. As for the story line, it goes nowhere and as a story just does not gel. What a god awful mess!!
I can never get my two hours back... but I can make it my mission to warn others not to make the same mistake I did.
Running with Scissors is strange and psychotically contagious
samseescinema21 October 2006
Running with Scissors reviewed by Sam Osborn
I've become all too wary of memoirs lately. Not because of the James Frey debacle, but because they've become the literary equivalent of the biopic at the movies. Just as I've grown tired of seeing the rise and inevitable fall of infamous icons during Oscar season, I've grown tired of plowing through the literary lives of men and women compelled to account their abusive childhoods, sexual deviancy, problems with drugs and alcohol, and, the real must, their harebrained families. The books sell well because readers love gossip, scandal, and melodrama. Running with Scissors has no shortage of such pulpy details, as its hero, Augusten Burroughs, has all the makings of memoir sentimentality. He was born into a selfish, dysfunctional family, adopted by his mother's psychiatrist, attempted suicide, turned out to be gay, and was exposed to sex at a young age under the hands of a man much past his age. His life was, if nothing else, screwed up enough to put into a book. But while I'm a pessimist to the genre, Running with Scissors is strange and psychotically contagious.
To oversimplify the matter, the film is a collection of people dealing with their issues. Heading up the Burroughs family is Norman Burroughs (Alec Baldwin), a business man with the sedated lick of alcoholism whose only wish seems to be to sidestep his wife's raging narcissism. Dierdre (Annete Bening), his wife, is a selfish would-be writing starlet whose lack of talent is constantly at odds with the confidence that she deserves a Nobel Prize. Her failure she blames on the supposed acts of sabotage by Norman, of which she confides in her only son Augusten. The family begins counseling with Doctor Finch (Brian Cox), the man who eventually adopts Augusten when Norman walks out and Dierdre begins popping Valium like prescription Skittles. The Finch family seems to be no upgrade though, as Agnes (Jill Clayburgh), the mother, is first seen munching on dog kibble, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), the favored daughter, is known to talk to her cat Freud, and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood), the second daughter, tries to open Augusten up by using electro-shock therapy. Their home is an old-money palace painted blazing pink, with various lawn furniture, cobbled windows, and a Christmas tree that's been erect for over two years.
My Mother happens to be mildly obsessed with Augusten Burroughs. She speaks of his stories and literary adventures as though they're the loopy reveries of a second son she birthed into paperback. So several months ago I took her to our hometown bookshop, The Boulder Bookstore, to see Mr. Burroughs speak on his most recent book, Magical Thinking. I'd read a few of his stories at my Mom's urgent requests and flipped through a couple chapters of his first memoir (the film's source), Running with Scissors, in preparation. I knew enough, I felt, to hold my own in a book signing. But as the first hand was raised during the Q&A segment of the presentation, a woman asked how Augusten's dog was doing, how his partner was holding up, if they'd purchased that house he mentioned, and if those shoes were still in mint condition. I was obviously behind the curve. Mr. Burroughs has entrusted so much of his intimate life with his writing. It's organic and swelling with humor drawn from a frank self-awareness that doesn't embarrass him or his readers. His audience isn't a third-party to his life, they're all his closest friends; quite a job for rookie feature Writer/Director Ryan Murphy.
Murphy approaches the material very cinematically, using every magic trick offered to him by his technicians. This is no shaky, documentary-style memoir that shreds cinema to the tatters of the broken characters on screen. Murphy's characters are heightened to hyperbolic altitude, but are anchored to a reality only gotten from the pages of non-fiction accounting. His film is tightly-knit, too, with every line of dialogue truly used and with characters' stories intertwined into a family of glowing psychosis. It makes for a film constructed from quirk and color, but Murphy's characters can't seem to escape from being so human. They deal with their issues, but like humans, rarely manage to solve them. It can be appalling and sometimes painful, but Burroughs and Murphy's stories are just too lovely to turn your back to.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
Sam Osborn
I've become all too wary of memoirs lately. Not because of the James Frey debacle, but because they've become the literary equivalent of the biopic at the movies. Just as I've grown tired of seeing the rise and inevitable fall of infamous icons during Oscar season, I've grown tired of plowing through the literary lives of men and women compelled to account their abusive childhoods, sexual deviancy, problems with drugs and alcohol, and, the real must, their harebrained families. The books sell well because readers love gossip, scandal, and melodrama. Running with Scissors has no shortage of such pulpy details, as its hero, Augusten Burroughs, has all the makings of memoir sentimentality. He was born into a selfish, dysfunctional family, adopted by his mother's psychiatrist, attempted suicide, turned out to be gay, and was exposed to sex at a young age under the hands of a man much past his age. His life was, if nothing else, screwed up enough to put into a book. But while I'm a pessimist to the genre, Running with Scissors is strange and psychotically contagious.
To oversimplify the matter, the film is a collection of people dealing with their issues. Heading up the Burroughs family is Norman Burroughs (Alec Baldwin), a business man with the sedated lick of alcoholism whose only wish seems to be to sidestep his wife's raging narcissism. Dierdre (Annete Bening), his wife, is a selfish would-be writing starlet whose lack of talent is constantly at odds with the confidence that she deserves a Nobel Prize. Her failure she blames on the supposed acts of sabotage by Norman, of which she confides in her only son Augusten. The family begins counseling with Doctor Finch (Brian Cox), the man who eventually adopts Augusten when Norman walks out and Dierdre begins popping Valium like prescription Skittles. The Finch family seems to be no upgrade though, as Agnes (Jill Clayburgh), the mother, is first seen munching on dog kibble, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), the favored daughter, is known to talk to her cat Freud, and Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood), the second daughter, tries to open Augusten up by using electro-shock therapy. Their home is an old-money palace painted blazing pink, with various lawn furniture, cobbled windows, and a Christmas tree that's been erect for over two years.
My Mother happens to be mildly obsessed with Augusten Burroughs. She speaks of his stories and literary adventures as though they're the loopy reveries of a second son she birthed into paperback. So several months ago I took her to our hometown bookshop, The Boulder Bookstore, to see Mr. Burroughs speak on his most recent book, Magical Thinking. I'd read a few of his stories at my Mom's urgent requests and flipped through a couple chapters of his first memoir (the film's source), Running with Scissors, in preparation. I knew enough, I felt, to hold my own in a book signing. But as the first hand was raised during the Q&A segment of the presentation, a woman asked how Augusten's dog was doing, how his partner was holding up, if they'd purchased that house he mentioned, and if those shoes were still in mint condition. I was obviously behind the curve. Mr. Burroughs has entrusted so much of his intimate life with his writing. It's organic and swelling with humor drawn from a frank self-awareness that doesn't embarrass him or his readers. His audience isn't a third-party to his life, they're all his closest friends; quite a job for rookie feature Writer/Director Ryan Murphy.
Murphy approaches the material very cinematically, using every magic trick offered to him by his technicians. This is no shaky, documentary-style memoir that shreds cinema to the tatters of the broken characters on screen. Murphy's characters are heightened to hyperbolic altitude, but are anchored to a reality only gotten from the pages of non-fiction accounting. His film is tightly-knit, too, with every line of dialogue truly used and with characters' stories intertwined into a family of glowing psychosis. It makes for a film constructed from quirk and color, but Murphy's characters can't seem to escape from being so human. They deal with their issues, but like humans, rarely manage to solve them. It can be appalling and sometimes painful, but Burroughs and Murphy's stories are just too lovely to turn your back to.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
Sam Osborn
Augusten's quirky life
MLDinTN1 October 2007
This was a fairly entertaining film. Augusten has a bipolar mom and an alcoholic dad. His dad leaves the family because he can't take him crazy mom any more. His mom, Deirdre, starts seeing a nutty psychiatrist, who gives her lots of pills and takes her money. She lets the doctor adopt her son. The doctor has a younger daughter, Natalie, who befriends Augsten. His older daughter, Hope, is obsessed with the bible and thinks all will be solved by praying. Hope and her dad even setup a shrine to the doctor's poo. Just watch to see what I mean. Augusten takes up with a much older man whom is a crazy patient. His life is just all messed up from what he has to live with.
FINAL VERDICT: Entertaining, has imagination. Worth seeing.
FINAL VERDICT: Entertaining, has imagination. Worth seeing.
Fatally flawed
djr-scenarist5 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I really wanted to love this movie. The trailer made it look wonderfully zany, a bizarre romp through a dysfunctional family, much like The Royal Tenenbaums. And of course the family is bizarre and dysfunctional! And the acting is terrific. Annette Bening must be the best actress in Hollywood today: she takes us through four or five conflicting emotions with every sick line she speaks, and is always overwhelmingly convincing as a mother who doesn't deserve love but somehow inspires it nonetheless. The screenwriters haven't given Gwyneth Paltrow much to work with, but she lights up the screen nonetheless. Jill Clayburgh is wonderful as the doctor's dishrag wife who somehow finds it in her woefully depleted and depressed self to mother a boy who desperately needs mothering--and in the end gives him the nest egg he needs to escape.
Unlike The Royal Tenenbaums, though, this movie is fatally flawed--I think by its point of view. The problem is that Joseph Cross's Augusten Burroughs is our only point of view, and he can only react to the madness he finds himself trapped in with a single obsessive attitude: moral indignation, driving him to want to escape. Since what he is indignant about, what he wants to escape, is the movie, by identifying with him we come to hate the movie and want to escape it. And in fact a good quarter of the people in the theater when I saw it left before the end. I too was tempted, many times, but forced myself to stay. Other users here on IMDb.com tell similar stories. Not a good narrative strategy!
Of course, there are ways around this problem. You can make the other characters so lovably and incorrigibly weird that the viewer feels torn--you both want to escape and want the main character to get over himself. You can make the main character a boring prig that everybody hates and nobody feels inclined to identify with. But Ryan Murphy doesn't find his way to either option--maybe because the whiny main character is his co-writer and co-producer? None of the other characters makes the movie any more enjoyable than its protagonist. None of the characters, including its protagonist, has a character arc. Nobody changes. Nobody grows. Nobody wants anything worth wanting, and nobody gets anything worth getting--except the protagonist, and all he wants is to escape, and while he does get his escape in the end, there is no reason why he couldn't have gotten it 45 minutes earlier or later. Nothing leads up to his escape; we never have a sense of a plot building up to it. All we get, all through the movie, is a little Republican in the middle of dysfunctional chaos, longing for a little middle-class morality, for rules and boundaries, and whining about being victimized when he doesn't find any.
In fact if this movie dramatized anything for me, it was the Christian Right's acting out of its victim status in a "liberal" America. The movie is set in the seventies, when sixties counter-cultural values began to percolate through mainstream America, especially (for this film) psychotherapy and the women's movement, and Burroughs caricatures both mercilessly. And while I'm sure he really did live through something like the events depicted in the book and the movie--this isn't just an allegory of the Christian Right's bathetic suffering in a liberal world--the movie's satirical portrayal of liberalism's social values and practices is way too congruent with evangelical conservatives' militant moral indignation to be accidental.
Unlike The Royal Tenenbaums, though, this movie is fatally flawed--I think by its point of view. The problem is that Joseph Cross's Augusten Burroughs is our only point of view, and he can only react to the madness he finds himself trapped in with a single obsessive attitude: moral indignation, driving him to want to escape. Since what he is indignant about, what he wants to escape, is the movie, by identifying with him we come to hate the movie and want to escape it. And in fact a good quarter of the people in the theater when I saw it left before the end. I too was tempted, many times, but forced myself to stay. Other users here on IMDb.com tell similar stories. Not a good narrative strategy!
Of course, there are ways around this problem. You can make the other characters so lovably and incorrigibly weird that the viewer feels torn--you both want to escape and want the main character to get over himself. You can make the main character a boring prig that everybody hates and nobody feels inclined to identify with. But Ryan Murphy doesn't find his way to either option--maybe because the whiny main character is his co-writer and co-producer? None of the other characters makes the movie any more enjoyable than its protagonist. None of the characters, including its protagonist, has a character arc. Nobody changes. Nobody grows. Nobody wants anything worth wanting, and nobody gets anything worth getting--except the protagonist, and all he wants is to escape, and while he does get his escape in the end, there is no reason why he couldn't have gotten it 45 minutes earlier or later. Nothing leads up to his escape; we never have a sense of a plot building up to it. All we get, all through the movie, is a little Republican in the middle of dysfunctional chaos, longing for a little middle-class morality, for rules and boundaries, and whining about being victimized when he doesn't find any.
In fact if this movie dramatized anything for me, it was the Christian Right's acting out of its victim status in a "liberal" America. The movie is set in the seventies, when sixties counter-cultural values began to percolate through mainstream America, especially (for this film) psychotherapy and the women's movement, and Burroughs caricatures both mercilessly. And while I'm sure he really did live through something like the events depicted in the book and the movie--this isn't just an allegory of the Christian Right's bathetic suffering in a liberal world--the movie's satirical portrayal of liberalism's social values and practices is way too congruent with evangelical conservatives' militant moral indignation to be accidental.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
