Running with Scissors

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.

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.

I have read 2 of Agustine Bourroughs novels and I was, frankly, a little afraid that this one might be ruined by being re-cast as a movie. With this story in the hands of this director and this cast, my fears were groundless: it translated beautifully. I am sure that this is in no small part due to Burroughs personal involvement in the production, but greater authors have had their work ruined right under their noses, so it is a credit to both Author and creative staff that the engaging story remains intact. I think it gives a truthful depiction of what it is like to grow-up with mental illness in the family and also presents a metaphor for the craziness and dysfunction which is, at some level, in every family. The cast was all superb, especially Annette Benning and Jill Clayburgh. Joseph Cross and Joseph Fiennes were equally superb -- in fact, EVERYONE was so good I almost don't want to single anyone out. I will recommend this movie to friends.

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.

"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.