Running With Scissors Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 17th, 2006
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2006 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): 1/2
Continuing in cinema's obsession with dysfunctional families, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS represents one of the lowest points in this genre. A kitchen sink picture, filled with a lesbian mother, a gay son, chain smoking, alcohol abuse, sex with minors and rampant insanity, the movie is supposedly based on Augusten Burroughs's memoirs. One of the worst movies of the year, it is not just merely bad; it is painfully bad and absolutely and utterly ridiculous.
As the story opens, Deirdre Burroughs (Annette Bening) is calling her son's school. Augusten can't go to school today, she tells them, because he has "over conditioned his hair." The mother, who we find out later has had only one book published, which she paid to be published, is off to read "A Poet's Struggle" to an audience of one at a local book store. Augusten adores his mom and hates his dad, a heavy drinking wimp played by Alec Baldwin. Augusten wants to be special and famous like his mother. The carefully designed period sets and clothing pokes fun at the 1970s, when the story begins.
Viewing herself as a woman who has spent her life "fighting oppression," Deirdre teaches the fine art of being an angry author to other women. "Get the rage on the page women," she admonishes them. Since she puts down anything they write as being terrible, they are reluctant to share. The obvious irony is that Deirdre is her family's chief oppressor and is an awful writer who deserves her long string of rejection letters.
An already ridiculous and completely unbelievable film, it completely goes off the deep end with the introduction of a psychiatrist named Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). The Burroughs go to see him as a marriage counselor, but he ends up being Deirdre's long term shrink. When Augusten (Joseph Cross) asks what is in the room next to the doctor's office, he gets an usual explanation. Dr. Finch explains that it is -- quite seriously -- his "masturbatorium." Taking the boy to see it, the room only contains a sofa, currently occupied by Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow), one of the doctor's crazy daughters, and two pictures on the wall for stimulation -- one of Golda Meir and the other of Queen Elizabeth II.
Believe it or not -- the movie gets much stranger still after this, and even more unwatchable.
After the inevitable divorce, Deirdre and Augusten go to live with the doctor and his wacky family. Jill Clayburgh plays Agnes, the doctor's dog-food eating wife. Their home, in a very wealthy neighborhood, is painted pink with junk all over the lawn and inside the house as well. Dishes and food are stacked up and the walls look like they will collapse at any moment.
As Natalie, the slightly saner of the doctor's two daughters, Evan Rachel Wood wants to "play doctor" with Augusten. Her version has him strapping on the headgear for 1,000 volts of electroshock therapy. Later they decide they feel repressed by the kitchen's ceiling, so they use sledgehammers to knock it out and create a natural skylight. Needless to say, the doctor approves of their handiwork.
The family makes all of their decisions with "Bible dipping." Flipping to some passage, they decide what it means. Yes, it will be just grapes and fish sticks tonight for dinner because that's how they've interpreted the biblical text selected at random.
As Neil Bookman, Joseph Fiennes plays a thirty-five-year-old mental patient who is having sex with the fourteen-year-old Augusten. Given how sexually explicit text messaging by an adult to a sixteen-year-old is making headlines constantly in today's newspapers, it is surprising how illegal, underage sex is treated so important and trivial in the movie.
The low point in a movie littered with them comes when the doctor wakes his household one morning. Yelling at the top of his lungs about a big event, he brings everyone in to view the results of his bowel movement. "My turd is in direct communication with the holy father," he tells everyone in rapture. He is particularly excited about the way it points heavenward. He wants his wife to fish it out and let it dry on the front lawn, so it can be properly preserved.
I should have walked out right then and there and not sat through another minute of this mind-numbing drivel, but I didn't. Bad decision.
One scene perfectly captures my feelings about the movie. In one of his sessions with Deirdre, Dr. Finch tells her, "Scream Deirdre, express your pain!" She does so, letting out a primal scream that could probably be heard a mile away. That is exactly how I wanted to express my pain about suffering through this movie.
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS runs a painfully long 2:02. It is rated R for "strong language and elements of sexuality, violence and substance abuse" and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 27, 2006. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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