Running with Scissors

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

Based on the 70's-set best-selling memoir by Augusten Burroughs, Running with Scissors is a complex and richly fascinating true tale dealing with everything from pedophilia, homosexuality, mental illness, alcoholics, and people who eat dog food for snacks and scoop up shit from the toilet. The film's official press notes call it "a blistering comedy". You might call it something else, but boring it ain't. Basically it's the story of one guy's weird, weird childhood. Burroughs (Joseph Cross) is a bright kid caught between the disastrous marriage of an often drunk father (Alec Baldwin) and a manic-depressive mother (Annette Bening), an unpublished poet who has twisted delusions of fame. They eventually divorce and she goes into therapy with a doctor who might be better off on the receiving end himself (in the midst of some sessions he goes off to relax in his "masturbatorium"). In order to continue her treatments she sends the 12-year-old off to live with the shrink and his clan in a place that only the Addams Family could snuggle up to. There's a hot-panted rebel daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), a bible-quoting sibling (Gwyneth Paltrow) and an out-there 30-something "adopted" son (Joseph Fiennes) who lives in the shed. If Augusten can survive this brood, he can live to tell the tale—and obviously did. Clearly not meant to be everyone's cup of mocha, this indulgently quirky story is an acquired taste, but one that lets a first-rate cast rip. When the lists of the year's best performances are written, there can be no doubt that Bening (and Jill Clayburgh, superb with her best role in years as the doctor's listless wife) will be right at the top. She beautifully portrays a disturbed woman of many faces, at times strong, vulnerable, vibrant and sad. This may be her finest screen work ever, reason alone to run with this crowd.