Stars: Jill Clayburgh, Gabrielle Union, Gwyneth Paltrow, Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Evan Rachel Wood, Joseph Fiennes, Brian Cox, Joseph Cross

Director: Ryan Murphy

Summary: Abandoned by his mother, Augusten is left to spend his teenage years as part of a psychiatrist's outlandish family. Augusten struggles to find himself while surrounded by a series of tormented and over-analyzed individuals.

As a child, Augusten (Joseph Cross) completely adores his narcissistic mother Deirdre (Bening). Her biggest fan, he encourages her goal of becoming a published poet when no one else will. But while these dreams of grandeur seem innocent through Augusten’s young eyes, they grow more delusional with time, slowly wearing on the family and contributing to its demise. While a teenage Augusten skips school and his father Norman (Alec Baldwin) uses alcohol to escape, Deirdre calls in an eccentric psychiatrist for an outside opinion. Dr. Finch’s advice ends up being anything but professional, however, as his looseness with prescriptions and wacko theories end Deirdre’s dysfunctional marriage and prompt her to abandon Augusten. Left to spend his teenage years as part of Dr. Finch’s outlandish family, Augusten struggles to find himself while surrounded by a series of tormented and over-analyzed individuals.

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Annette Bening is the stand-out highlight in this dysfunctional "family" comedy based on the bestselling memoir by Augusten Burroughs. Although fans of the book may be slightly disappointed with the film's uneven and somewhat campy rendition of Burroughs' twisted adolescence in the 1970s, there's plenty of pleasure to be found in the work of an excellent cast led by Bening, who gives a subtle dare-to-hate-me performance as Burroughs' mother Diedre, a would-be poet who's so aloof about her teenage son Augusten (played by fresh-faced newcomer Joseph Cross, from Flags of Our Fathers) that she allows him to be legally adopted into the eccentric family of her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). As the half-crazed Finch overmedicates Diedre into a haze of semi-conscious madness, he also turns Augusten's life upside down while his wife (Jill Clayburgh) and daughters (Gwyneth Paltrow, Evan Rachel Wood) indulge their own eccentricities and Augusten enters into an intimate relationship with one of Finch's adopted patients (played by Joseph Fiennes).

As adapted and directed by Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, Running with Scissors lacks the singular voice of Burroughs' dryly comedic first-person narrative, but even as the film struggles to find a consistent tone, it's so full of wacky behavior that you can't help laughing. It's a messy, patchwork quilt of a movie, blessed by authentically garish '70s production design and a soundtrack of familiar '70s hits. In rendering Burroughs' indelible portrait of weak, irresponsible adults and the people they victimise, Murphy and his well-chosen cast (which also includes Alec Baldwin as Diedre's ex-husband) find moments of touching pathos amidst the madness. For her part, Bening delivers an acclaimed performance that gives the film a dramatic weight it otherwise lacks. The rest is for anyone who enjoys a laugh at the freak-show expense of damaged and damaging characters. --Jeff Shannon

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	A Personal Memoir by Augusten Burroughs, Two featurettes
Year:	2006
Release Date:	June 18, 2007
Runtime:	118 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 40861
Keywords:	With, English, Comedy, Running, Scissors, Drama
Genre:	Drama