Film Review: Running with Scissors

Running With Scissors is an emotional mess of a movie about an emotional mess. A rational person might say that's appropriate. However, rationality and appropriateness are chased away by lunacy and chaos in this story.

The source of the turmoil is Augusten Burroughs' successful memoir of the same title. The tumult of his adolescence was so bizarre, it could only have resulted in the extremes of suicide or great book material. Luckily for Burroughs, it was the latter.

Ryan Murphy, who has become an industry powerhouse from television's "Nip/Tuck," adapted the memoir to screen, in addition to directing the film in true hyphenate fashion. Forging such a highly episodic book as Running With Scissors into a narrative with a beginning, middle and end is a bit like herding cats. Even Burroughs wrote, "It doesn't matter where I start, because no one will believe me." Murphy has done a workmanlike job, but his screenplay is sopping from the weight of its emotionally overcharged literary fountainhead. Every scene aspires to an emotional crescendo. Everybody cries. Not since the infomercial for the Ronco Onion Dicer has there been this much crying on screen. And just so you don't forget this is set in the 1970s, everybody smokes. As great a title as Running With Scissors is, a more descriptive title for this movie could be Crying with Cigarettes.

The crying is not misplaced, as this story is fundamentally tragic. It is bound to cause some confusion that the marketing campaign seems to promote this film as a comedy. Augusten Burroughs' severely mentally ill mother alienates his alcoholic father and is improperly medicated by a psychotic doctor. In her vulnerable bipolar condition, she legally abandons the teenaged Augusten to the custody of the predatory psychiatrist. How funny is that? If distributing psychotropic drugs like M&Ms is funny, then this is hilarious. If sexual predators are funny, then this is a riot.

Screenwriter-Director Murphy gives early indications that he is going to paint with a whimsical brush. The bond between an 8-year-old Augusten and his mother is charmingly demonstrated when she calls his school to have him excused for the day because he has "over-conditioned his hair." Augusten's own quirkiness emerges as he boils his allowance coins in a saucepan on the stove and wraps the family dog in aluminum foil because he "likes shiny things." But things get decidedly darker when Augusten is dumped to live with the doctor's clan, a cross between the Addams Family and the Royal Tannenbaums. Only this brood is more dangerous than the Addams and not as smart as the Tannenbaums.

Annette Bening slashes the screen with the frighteningly realistic mood swings of a seriously disturbed unpublished feminist poet. She shuns glamour and cries with such saturation that the Academy Award nomination committee has to take notice. Not to be outdone by evading glamour in a key role is a makeup-free Jill Clayburgh, a fine actress we see too infrequently these days. Alec Baldwin has a brief but effective red-eyed part and at one point exchanges a pitch perfect hangdog expression with the put-upon family dog that is worth pages of dialogue. The despicable doctor is portrayed by Brian Cox with exactly enough oily superiority to make you squirm. The lead role of teenaged Augusten is handled well by Joseph Cross and he, too, can turn on the waterworks when needed. Gweneth Paltrow has a cameo part as a stiff moralist who is perhaps the only character not called upon to cry.

Murphy's screenplay speaks loudly to the follies of the late 1970s, such as radical feminism and bogus psychiatric therapies. These post-disco, energy crisis years were what Murphy calls "the ugly 70s" and the art direction visually underscores the era with avocado green kitchen appliances, sunflower yellow rotary phones and rainbow hued tube tops. The soundtrack bolsters the storytelling with ironic placement of vintage songs such as "Blinded By the Light," "Benny and the Jets," "Quizas, Quizas, Quizas" and "One Less Bell to Answer."

According to Ryan Murphy, this independent film cost in the modest vicinity of $15 million and all the actors worked for scale. If only the releasing company, Tri Star, had not tried to promote Running With Scissors as a comedy cut-up, then perhaps it would be chasing a more receptive audience.

Running With Scissors, 1 hour 58 minutes, rated R.