Running with Scissors
Tags: romantic, comedy, psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
The film is a semi-autobiographical account of Augusten Burroughs' (Joseph Cross) childhood. His mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening), who wishes to become a famous poet, suffers from severe mood swings and erratic behavior. Augusten's alcoholic father, Norman (Alec Baldwin), proves to be of no help. By the time he is a teenager, Augusten no longer feels safe in his own house because of his parents. Deirdre claims that Norman is the reason for her unhappiness, and that he desires to kill her. She ultimately places Augusten under the care of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), the eccentric patriarch of an oddball family, which consists of his submissive wife Agnes (Jill Clayburgh), religious daughter Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his rebellious youngest child Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood).
Augusten finds it hard to adjust to living with the doctor’s family, and is subject to irregular weekend visits by his increasingly unsound mother. After confessing to Natalie that he is gay, Augusten befriends Neil Bookman (Joseph Fiennes), Finch's adopted 33-year-old son. The two begin an erratic sexual relationship quickly after meeting, but Augusten finds it difficult to cope with their age difference.
Finch manipulates Deirdre into signing over her money to him. Deirdre finds temporary stability with her living companion Dorothy Ambrose (Gabrielle Union), but Augusten feels like his mother no longer wants him, and deals with the negative effects of Neil's schizophrenia.
At the end of the movie, Augusten leaves for New York to become a writer. He says goodbye to his mother and goes to the bus station. Agnes, with whom he has developed a caring relationship, arrives and gives him some money she has saved up.

Review: 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.
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.
Joseph Fiennes has a difficult time with a difficult character, another victim of the doctor's "treatment".I would agree with another commenter who stated that the director Ryan Murphy uses every trick in the book when it comes to film making and then some.
Brian Cox, Joseph Cross, and a great Jill Clayburgh really were amazing.Needless to say, I highly recommend this movie.
Augusten (Joseph Cross) lives between his mother and the psychologist, along with his quirky family (Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood).
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.
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.
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.
If Augusten didn't tell you at the beginning (of the book and movie) that what you are about to see (read) is based entirely on facts, you wouldn't believe it, and probably a lot of people don't!
Augustan also befriends the younger daughter (Wood) who seems to be the only one who has their head screwed on correctly.From the get-go you can tell this story is far from conventional, however director Ryan Murphy fails to bottle-up any consistent thread of drama or comedy, which makes the film really disjointed and cold.
It's rather unfortunate because there are some great performances here from Bening, Cox, Cross, and Joseph Fiennes, who plays the adopted son who lives in a shack in the back of the house..
The music was jarring did not do a thing for the film.I noticed Mr Murphy took three credits at the end of the movie (1st to appear) so I guess he was very proud but I have no idea why.
Why would you take a great book and turn it over to a Nip/Tuck director is beyond me.You know sometimes you go to movies with great cast and you truly want it to be good but no matter how hard the actors try it just is a bad movie.
The things that happen are not funny, they are disturbing; especially considering they are supposed to be true.This movie had the feel of The Royal Tenenbaums, another movie I hated, only Running With Scissors was even more dysfunctional and less funny.I will never get those hours back.
...but if she gets an Oscar nomination for RUNNING WITH SCISSORS I will kidnap every single voting member of the Academy and force them to actually watch the film, since there's no way they saw it.The part when her character dances in imaginary snow to "Blinded by the Light" is one of the worst moments in any film, ever.What makes this movie offensively bad is its almost arrogant insistence that it is a Meaningful Film.Alec Baldwin and Jill Clayburgh are the only ones who don't completely embarrass themselves, and they're not GOOD, but I'd almost give a nomination to Clayburgh just for not pissing me off by her mere presence at the end of the film.Ryan Murphy: the next time you make a film, make it stylistically consistent, and there's also a good thing called character development.
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.
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).
The cast is excellent, Annette Bening's performance was flawless, Joseph Fiennes has a very convincing role as Neil Bookman, Brian Cox as Dr. Finch great as always, Evan Rachel Wood and Gwyneth Paltrow were very good also and Joseph Cross as Augusten Burroughs delivers a awesome and convincing acting job.
I'm not sure, because there were only a few tiny flaws that I found in this film, but they were quick to pass on, because the acting and story telling in Running with Scissors was very good.
I think the thing that might help with that is because I could relate to it on some level, which sounds wacky, but from my family background, it felt good to know there was someone else out there who was going through the exact same situation.Deirdre Burroughs is an extremely loving mother to her son, Augustine, she lets him stay home from school whenever he wants and plays with him all the time.
This film is based on the real life story of a young man who had a disturbed family, and had unusual experiences while living with an exploitative and crazy psychiatrist.This film was in no way bad.
Naturally, Augusten(And really,NOBODY with their wits about them)doesn't take well to this situation,and the bizarre,cluttered,chaotic surrounding that the doctor's home/office is in(and there's FAR too much to describe here)doesn't help.While there,Augusten meets the rest of the Finch family:wife Agnes(Jill Clayburgh,looking haggy and scary),oldest daughter Hope(Gwyneth Paltrow,sallow and drawn)and younger daughter Natalie(Even Rachel Wood,appealing yet unstable and unpredictable).
He also strikes up a relationship with one of Finch's former patients(Joseph Fiennes,nearly unrecognizable in large mustache and disheveled hair;also bearing a vague resemblance to Jason Patric!),which is equal parts enlightening and disturbing.As Augusten tries to get on with his life,his relationship with his over-medicated,deteriorating mother gets steadily worse,with her descent into narcissistic delusion making her increasingly difficult to connect to.This movie,penned and directed by Ryan Murphy,is(to use a favorite expression I once heard on "Mystery Science Theater 3000")a spunky load of noodles.
This film,sold as a dark comedy,seems to be so dark that the laughs are intertwined with groans nearly throughout.The summary line may over-simplify it,but I think it's about right:this movie,were it merely a fictional or vaguely realistic retelling of an odd story of dysfunction,would be more digestible if it were just that,fiction.
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.
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.
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).
In the book Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs details a horrific adolescence, whether it's true or not is kind of beside the point.He gets you into the head of his character, who is around enough messed up people that having a 35 year old boyfriend when you are 13 and having an insane mother seems kind of normal.
Only with no payoff.The climax scene where Dr. Finch is yelling at Bookman while Augusten and Natalie tear the ceiling down and Agnes talks to Deidre...you expect it will erupt in some major kind of plot point...and then nothing happens.Five points because of the great actors, the great ORIGINAL story, not this adaptation and the fact that it was kind of like a Train Wreck..
The casting was perfect and I really enjoyed the performance by the young Joseph Cross and Evan Racheal Wood...I am looking forward to seeing them in future presentations.Anyways, concluding my thought on the film it was an outstanding and under credited movie.
The only two semi-interesting characters are played by Joesph Fiennes and soon to be mega-star Evan Rachel Wood (who steals EVERY movie she is in).The film is supposedly based on writer Augusten Burrough's memoirs (which I have not read), but one can't help but believe his creative side took over for numerous exaggerations.
Even many of the chosen songs from the era are some of the worst possible choices.All are advised to avoid and wait for the next real film with Annette Bening or Gwyneth Paltrow or Evan Rachel Wood.
Running with Scissors is just off, nobody seems to have a sense of comedic timing, and most of the dialogue feels like the characters are talking to a wall.
Annette Bening is sensational as the deranged mother of a young son, in Joseph Cross, who is totally brilliant in his role, in a story of pain and pathos with a dark element of humor.
The writing and the dialog in SCISSORS by Ryan Murphy perfectly captures each character's actions and emotions and the film moves along with each frame keeping the audience in both hysterics and wonder as to what will happen next.
Jill Clayburgh is so wonderful in her role and the final scene in the film with she and Joseph Cross is one to remember as finally the son is given something that will bring him happiness.Every frame that Annette Bening brings to the screen is a marvel to watch such a great actress...Evan Rachel Wood continues to become a stunning presence on the screen and Brian Cox is truly "the mad doctor" here to an array of patients that would keep UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute in business for years.
Brian Cox (recently brilliant as Langrische on Deadwood), Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh among them.Forget the obtrusive and self-conscious music.This movie was about 2 hours long which is about 90 minutes longer than necessary.
Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) is caught between his feuding parents (Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin) when their crackpot therapist Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) steps in and offers to take the boy off their hands, throwing the teenager into a far more dysfunctional family setting.
It shows the tortured poet in a diplomatic and fascinating light which could be seen as Augusten or Benning's character (who should win an academy award for her incredible contribution of passion to the character she is playing who she obviously loved) Evan Rachel Wood, who has had to work quite hard to impress me before absolutely had me star struck - this was the first performance I saw her in that provoked me to think she had intelligence and could in fact bring a sense of grace to the character Seriously guys watch it.
The only character who I believe was lacking in development was Brian Coxs character, Doctor Finch.I guess it doesn't surprise me that a lot of people didn't like this movie...but I really wish more people could appreciate it or try to sympathize, even if they couldn't empathize.
This team starts with an excellent book written by Augusten Burroughs to the perfectly talented hands of Director Ryan Murphy, who beautifully directed a just perfect cast.
For those legions of us who delighted in Augusten Burroughs' sharing of his exceedingly warped childhood in the memoir RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, this book to film transformation will be revelatory and extremely satisfying.
Until watching the DVD (not expecting a book of this nature could be successfully molded into a film, much less be a platform for Annette Bening to garner Golden Globe accolades for a role like Deirdre), it is impossible to believe that such a fine book could and is an even better movie.
Kudos to writer, director, producer Ryan Murphy for taking a one-person standup comedy book and mold it into a riotously funny and at the same time deeply moving story about the effects of childhood on our personality development.Augusten (first as 6-year old Jack Kaeding and later as brilliantly transformed by the very talented Joseph Cross) is a conflicted child whose mother Deirdre (Annette Bening in an Oscar deserving performance) is a bipolar poet wannabe with delusions of grandeur who drives her alcoholic husband Norman (Alec Baldwin) out of the house, preferring instead to form a lesbian relationship with Fern (Kristin Chenoweth) from one of her wildly dysfunctional poetry groups.
The cast is uniformly splendid - Annette Bening is amazingly three-dimensional - and the choice of Joseph Cross as Augusten is completely on target for this re-thinking of an impossible book to film.
Starting with Augusten's own parents - an alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin), and his mother whom he is extremely close with, Deirdre Burroughs, played excellently by Annette Benning, who is suffering from severe delusions that she's a great poet awaiting her potential to be unleashed to the world.
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.
I enjoy "difficult" movies and, while the "dysfunctional family" theme is now way over done, "American Beauty" was one of my favorite recent films.
Brian Cox plays the messed-up therapist Dr. Finch, who adopts young Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross).
The family lives in a big, crappy pink mansion.The movie is filled with hilarious moments, such as when Dr. Finch wakes up and announces to everyone that he has received a message from god--in his excrement (because, "the sh*t is pointing up!") I hope to see this wonderful comedy several more times, for I have little felt so fulfilled leaving the theater.I give Running with Scissors a 4/4..
But then I haven't read his book and maybe he did fictionalize the story, but in the movie many things feel shorthanded, like the character of the father, played by Alec Baldwin, which was completely underdevelopedmaybe because pop has another whole memoir/movie in the works devoted to him?
Thanks less to the script and more to stellar performances on the part of the cast, including Jill Clayburg and especially Annette Bening, the movie does gather some heavy dramatic momentum toward the end, and while the film may not have much more to say than it sucks growing up around crazy people, there's one scene that cuts from character to character, all simultaneously screaming in pain and frustration, that I thought said it pretty well..
It's a most unusual set of people surrounding this lad: a mentally unstable mother and an alcoholic father, an eccentric psychiatrist and his even more eccentric family, and others.Also, when the movie ended, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the director is none other than Ryan Murphy, now known as the creator of shows like "Glee" and "American Horror Story".
Joseph Cross, Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox, Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Kristin Chenoweth and Gabrielle Union all put on fine performances.
Running with Scissors is the real life story of writer Augusten Burroughs who grew up in a mentally dysfunctioned environment.
The movie was beautifully written and wonderfully brought to life by the top-notch performances of Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, and Jill Clayburgh.
'Running With Scissors's highlights are clearly its performances, particular those of Annette Bening, Brian Cox and Jill Clayburgh.
A feel-good oddball of a movie with Wes Anderson-ish vibes, that almost only could have come out of a true story, (as it is): Teenager Augusten is more or less dumped by his mentally unstable poet mother in the mid- 70s, to live with the family's psychiatrist...
He just seems to be an odd individual, and the audience is just supposed to ignore the lack of development his character goes through.The rest of the major cast, from Evan Rachel Wood, to Gwyneth Paltrow, to Jill Clayburgh, to Joseph Fiennes, even Cross himself, are all a bit of an enigma.
Afraid that first time director Ryan Murphy has no control of his film, Running with Scissors.
Burroughs himself is spotlighted in "A Personal Memoir by Augusten Burroughs", where he explains the genesis of the book and movie from his own life story, while "Inside Outsiders" has the cast (except Paltrow) explain how they approached their individual roles.