Review: Running With Scissors

UK release date: 2nd February

This mordantly amusing tale of family dysfunction from the creator of TV’s Nip/Tuck is so outrageous that it’s hard to believe it’s based on a real-life memoir. Charting the 1970s upbringing of US writer Augusten Burroughs (who appears as himself in the closing titles), the highly stylised movie is a patchwork of his formative childhood experiences, held together by juicily idiosyncratic performances.

Joseph Cross is sweetly engaging as the adolescent Augusten, who struggles with identity issues after his wannabe-poet mother (Annette Bening) sends him to live with her madcap psychiatrist (Brian Cox) while she finds her creative voice. The shrink’s own clan — including dog snack-munching wife Jill Clayburgh and alleged telepath Gwyneth Paltrow — are hilariously unconventional, camouflaging the film’s lack of emotional depth with their eccentricities.

It’s only in the downbeat final third that the narrative’s overall lack of structure becomes apparent, though fortunately the dialogue retains its enjoyable sharpness amid the gloom.

Radio Times rating:

***

UK cinema certificate 15
Running time 121mins

Review by Sloan Freer

News: Ryan Murphy

Nip/Tuck writer/director Murphy has made a good break into movies with this week’s Running With Scissors, but it’s his next outing as writer/director for the big screen which looks all set to catapult him into the Hollywood big time.

Dirty Tricks, due out in 2008, is looking increasingly like a must-see. Set in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal which saw US President Richard Nixon forced to leave office in disgrace, it will star some of the best screen actors currently working, including Running With Scissors stars Annette Benning (as Washington journalist Helen Thomas), Jill Clayburgh (as former First Lady Pat Nixon) and Gwyneth Paltrow (as the wife of Watergate cover-up mastermind John Dean), through Meryl Streep (as the notoriously outspoken wife of US Attourney General and Watergate conspirator John Mitchell), Jim Broadbent as Nixon himself, with Sharon Stone and Brad Pitt making up the cast, though their roles are as yet unknown.

News: Alec Baldwin

His turn as Annette Benning’s alcoholic husband in this week’s Running With Scissors is just the latest in a recent spurt of top-notch character performances from the former A-lister, showing he’s well on his way to having a bit of a career revival following his Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination back in 2004, and his Best Comic TV Actor Golden Globe this year for 30 Rock.

Next up – on 23rd February – is Robert De Niro’s intriguing-sounding tale of the birth of the FBI The Good Shepherd, starring Matt Damon with the likes of Angelina Jolie, De Niro himself, Joe Pesci and Michael Gambon in support. That will be followed by the less promising, yet potentially interesting, 1980s-set coming of age gangster drama Brooklyn Rules, starring Freddie Prinze Jr, Mena Suvari and Scott “son of James” Caan.

Speaking of Freddie Prinze Jr, Baldwin’s next film after that will be Suburban Girl, a romantic comedy of relationships with age differences where he gets all loved up with Freddie’s real-world better half, Sarah Michelle Gellar – who at 29 is a good 20 years younger than him. Nice work if you can get it…

Then there’s another 1980s-set coming of age flick, Lymelife, though this time it’s a family-based comedy, with Baldwin as the patriarch of a family that includes Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rory “brother of Macaulay” Culkin, before Baldwin heads back to the war film genre that has served him so well in the past for The Forbidden City, based around the post-WWII Sino-American hunt for Japanese war criminals. Could be good…

News: Annette Benning

After this week’s Running With Scissors, Benning will be teaming up again with its writer/director Ryan Murphy for his Watergate political drama Dirty Tricks. Playing journalist Helen Thomas – a Washington Press Corp veteran who reported on the White House for 40 years from 1960 through to 2000 – she’s unlikely to have an especially prominent role, but her presence even in a small part in a film is always a good sign of quality.

After that she’s likely to be taking a more major role in a new adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic play A Woman of No Importance. Whether this will be a period-set costume drama or a modern update is as yet unknown, but her co-stars will include Sean Bean and Lindsay Lohan.