Based on the best-selling memoir by Augusten Burroughs, "Running With Scissors" tells the story of Augusten's traumatic childhood experience with an absent father (an always-terrific Alec Baldwin) and his psychotic mother Deirdre, an aspiring poet, (Annette Bening, in another masterful performance). Augusten, played by the up-and-coming Joseph Cross, suffers through his parents' separation and eventual divorce just like any normal teenager. The twist comes when his mother signs him away to live with her shrink, Dr. Agnes Finch (Brian Cox), and his dysfunctional family.
Narrated by Cross, the "Running with Scissors" soon unfolds into a sequence of crazy events, from the laugh-inducing introduction of Mrs. Finch (Jill Clayburgh in a superb performance) eating dog kibble to the disturbing action of the eldest daughter Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) starving her cat to death because it told her to do so.
The only Finch family member approaching normalcy is younger daughter Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood). Wood, showing yet again that Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff will have to wait to be the future Hollywood superstars, superbly portrays Natalie's hidden insecurities about her self-image.
The soundtrack of '70s pop music adds a needed lightness to the often dark, depressing events.
The film delivers a dark comedy, but one that has its dramatic, endearing moments. Unlike "The Royal Tenenbaums"-a similar, albeit fictional, dark comedy-"Scissors" never sinks into the realm of meaningless quirks simply for the sake of laughter. It may be funny and unrealistic at times. Burroughs, for instance, opens the movie with the comment claiming, "Nobody is going to believe me anyway." But it still manages to draw you in and make you care about the characters involved.
Written and directed by Ryan Murphy ("Nip/Tuck"), the film shows a similar taste for the eccentric. Thankfully, the grotesque operations of his hit TV program do not make an appearance in this film. Instead of plastic surgery gone oh-so-terribly wrong, we have scenes of electric shock therapy and lesbian liaisons.
In another fantastic and all too brief appearance, Kristin Chenoweth plays Fern, a woman initially in awe of Deirdre's poetic abilities, who later has a brief and ill-fated love affair with her.
In a dramatic shift from his role as William Shakespeare in the critically acclaimed "Shakespeare in Love," Joseph Fiennes portrays Bookman, the mentally disturbed gay son of Dr. Finch. Although he gave an admirable effort, Fiennes' character seems rather cliché. Bookman hears voices, blames his father for his psychotic troubles and has romantic relations with 14-year-old Augusten. His shining moment comes when he attempts to kill his father, Dr. Finch, but even that turns out to be disappointing. He fails to go through with the murder and disappears, never to be heard from again.
Most of the movie takes place in the Finch's bizarre home, a mansion which one imagines was decorated by someone's eccentric 90-year-old great grandmother and all of her senile girlfriends. Situated in an upper-middle-class locale-bearing an eerie resemblance to Wisteria Lane-the biggest shock is that the neighborhood association has not come pounding on the door, demanding that this eyesore be removed from their Waspy existence. "Scissors" delivers a dark comedy, but one that has its dramatic, endearing moments.
Ultimately, the movie rests on the performances of Cox and Bening. In a role that has already garnered rumors of an Oscar nomination, Bening's performance could be labeled overdramatic and put-on. But in comparison to the crazy environment that surrounds Bening, we appreciate her performance all the more. Deirdre is a self-important woman who makes poor choices. We don't like her, but we want her to succeed-we want her, in the end, to be happy. Cox, by contrast, lets the craziness come to him, portraying Dr. Finch as a self-absorbed father figure, finding humor and significance in the most absurd circumstances. Although both actors play characters wholly full of themselves, Bening and Cox succeed in making their characters endearing.