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PRODUCER: |
Ryan Murphy (first movie producer credit), Dede Gardner (Year of the Dog), Brad Grey (The Departed, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Matt Kennedy (no credits), Brad Pitt (The Departed) |
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Running With Scissors . . . or, speaking of cliches, "a sharp stick in the eye" comes to mind.
Augusten Burroughs grew up in the 1970’s. But his life was different than most kids, his Mom and his family was so over-the-top dysfunctional he figured no one would ever believe him, so he began keeping a journal. He grew up and turned that journal into a book that now has become this movie, Running With Scissors. To sum up his Mom, his family and this movie…uncomfortably disturbing. He’s caught right in the middle of his Mom’s (played by Annette Bening) demented life. She is certifiably crazy and is obsessed with writing poetry and finding herself. She turns to a therapist for help who is psychotic himself (played by Brian Cox) and makes things worse. He drives her to divorce her husband (played by Alec Baldwin), she gets hooked on a variety of prescription medications, becomes a lesbian, gives up her son and looses her mind. If you’re hoping for a twist to the story and a happy ending, there really isn’t a happy or healthy moment in Augusten’s life as he grows up. He’s just faced with dealing with the absurdity and surviving the best he can.
Running With Scissors is, at best, great actors delivering great acting. Unfortunately, though, the story is too unsettling and the characters too eccentric for great acting to matter. The constant shift between depressing and bizarre is too much, and depth and detail are decidedly too little. It's a rambling recollection of a troubled life with little relevance to most audiences. And, it's so reminiscent of the 1970's that it will - just as the 70's did - make you nauseous. Running With Scissors is undoubtedly a story the book's author needed to tell, but it's not a story most of us need to hear.
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