Running With Scissors
by Ryan Murphy
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph CrossDirector: Ryan Murphy
Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
Writer: Ryan Murphy
Producer: Augusten Burroughs
Writer: Augusten Burroughs
Producer: Bonnie Weis
Producer: Brad Grey
Producer: Brad Pitt
Producer: Dede Gardner
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Korean (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Portuguese (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 5.1; Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.40:1
Running Time: 116 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-06
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Sony Pictures
Movie Reviews of Running With Scissors
Movie Review: It Helps If You've Been There Even Slightly
Summary: 4 Stars
It helps if you've seen psychiatrists yourselves. It helps if your own family tends toward the crazy with some very extreme and over the top members. I qualify so I thought this was pretty good. I'm thankful to say that I never experienced anything as extreme as this author did though Burroughs, the author and the protagonist here, bases this upon his own life where his difficult parents break up, his mother gets even crazier and he is SENT TO LIVE WITH HIS MOTHER'S PSYCHIATRIST! The shrink is really crazy yet he is certainly safer with the shrink than with his mother. She is always just one step away from oblivion in her depression over her inability to realize the life she dreamed for herself.
The author picks up a stepsister of sorts, Natalie, and also a stepmother. They are actually ok as substitute family members. Ironically, where the mother failed is where the son will succeed, as a writer.
The two best acting jobs are done by two female powerhouses, Annette Benning and Jill Clayburg as the mother and the stepmother. benning is the funniest as a real flake. However, everyone else does a very good job. The sessions which you see the shrink hold are over the top but they hold a certain kernel of truth which makes them funny.
I'm not sure why Alec Baldwin and Gwyneth Paltrow were used in this movie. They were both capable of doing so much more than their small roles in this movie. They are fine for what they do but they are way down on the totem pole.
I'm told that the book is funnier and now I'm really interested in reading it. I can see where this is hard material to film but I give them credit for tackling a very difficult subject matter. However, this is certainly a movie which is not going to appeal to everyone. The film is also a gay coming of age movie and will appeal to some viewers on that basis.
Summary of Running With Scissors
Based on the personal memoirs of Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors is a wickedly funny, brave and moving tale of surviving a most unusual childhood. Augusten's (Joseph Cross) mother (Annette Bening) is a deluded aspiring post with bipolar disorder whose marriage to his dad (Alec Baldwin) is in ruins. Soon, she is seeing a very eccentric therapist named Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), while Augusten is left in the care of Finch's wackly family, including his tightly-wound daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow). Abandoned by his parents and adopted by the Finches, he finds a kindred spirit in youngest daughter Natalie (Even Rachel Wood) and motherly support from Finch's long suffering wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh). Constantly recording the events of his life in his journals as a way to cope, Augusten finds himself avoiding school, learning about love from an older man (Joseph Fiennes), and making big decisions at the tender age of fifteen.Annette Bening is the stand-out highlight in this dysfunctional "family" comedy based on the bestselling memoir by Augusten Burroughs. Although fans of the book may be slightly disappointed with the film's uneven and somewhat campy rendition of Burroughs' twisted adolescence in the 1970s, there's plenty of pleasure to be found in the work of an excellent cast led by Bening, who gives a subtle dare-to-hate-me performance as Burroughs' mother Diedre, a would-be poet who's so aloof about her teenage son Augusten (played by fresh-faced newcomer Joseph Cross, from Flags of Our Fathers) that she allows him to be legally adopted into the eccentric family of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). As the half-crazed Finch overmedicates Diedre into a haze of semi-conscious madness, he also turns Augusten's life upside down while his wife (Jill Clayburgh) and daughters (Gwyneth Paltrow, Evan Rachel Wood) indulge their own eccentricities and Augusten enters into an intimate relationship with one of Finch's adopted patients (played by Joseph Fiennes).
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As adapted and directed by Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, Running with Scissors lacks the singular voice of Burroughs' dryly comedic first-person narrative, but even as the film struggles to find a consistent tone, it's so full of wacky behavior that you can't help laughing. It's a messy, patchwork quilt of a movie, blessed by authentically garish '70s production design and a soundtrack of familiar '70s hits. In rendering Burroughs' indelible portrait of weak, irresponsible adults and the people they victimize, Murphy and his well-chosen cast (which also includes Alec Baldwin as Diedre's ex-husband) find moments of touching pathos amidst the madness. For her part, Bening delivers an acclaimed performance that gives the film a dramatic weight it otherwise lacks. The rest is for anyone who enjoys a laugh at the freak-show expense of damaged and damaging characters. --Jeff Shannon
Stills from Running with Scissors (click for larger image)
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More Running with Scissors on Amazon.com
 The Book |  More Films staring Annette Bening |  More Films about Eccentric Families |
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