**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Annette Bening, Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Evan Rachel Wood
screenplay by Ryan Murphy, based on the novel by Augusten Burroughs
directed by Ryan Murphy
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover It would be hard to not be a little moved by the traumatic goings-on of Running with Scissors. The film is based on Augusten Burroughs's best-selling memoir, and the author has plenty to forget: not merely the failure of his real family, consisting of a distant alcoholic father and a self-righteous failed-poet mother, but also the nightmare of moving out of that home and into that of Mommy's quack psychiatrist. Yet as the horrors pile up, one wonders what's being learned in the midst of all this unburdening. I haven't read Burroughs's book, but Ryan Murphy's screen translation fails completely to draw conclusions from the facts–we're simply dropped in the midst of some seriously unhappy people and left to fend for ourselves. Perhaps the memoirist felt the same way, but without any generalizations drawn it seems rather like that money-grubbing head-shrinker, making hay with other people's depression.
Things aren't going well when we first meet Augusten (Jack Kaeding), who as a six-year-old circa 1971 is in thrall to his wildly ambitious and deeply angry mother Deirdre (Annette Bening). Hungry for recognition, Deirdre takes out career frustrations on her souse husband Norman (Alec Baldwin) with a torrent of psychobabble that would drive anyone to drink. By the time Augusten is 15 (and played by Joseph Cross), he's thoroughly fed up–and then his mother falls in with demented therapist Dr. Finch (Brian Cox). In no time flat, she has transferred Augusten to the doctor's junk-strewn mansion, where the patriarch leads Deirdre into drugged stupors and psychotic episodes while manipulating his daughters–dutiful, co-dependent Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) and bitter, sensible Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood)–into various states of pliability.
Although it would probably take a battery of biographers and caseworkers to untangle this web of cross-purposes and confusions, the movie doesn't even try. As Augusten's painful experiences–such as a fruitless relationship with 35-year-old schizophrenic Neil (Joseph Fiennes) and the doctor's tendency to read premonitions from his morning bowel movements–pile up, they commensurately weigh us down. Inevitably we respond to so much trauma happening to one person, and at some point, it gets to you–especially with Deirdre's stream-of-consciousness ramblings, designed as they are to deflect criticism. Murphy's approach, however, suggests that he neither knows nor comprehends this kind of suffering. He's good at art-directing Mommy's living-room poetry readings in hot canary yellow or finding the right Elton John tune to underscore a moment, but he's all about exteriors: he can't draw you a map to what happens inside.
Buried in this story of therapeutic misadventure is a thesis about the abuse of the psychological model–how almost all of the characters locate a convenient out in the highfalutin' language of Freud and his fellow travellers, as well as how the lingo proves to be a great way to get people to do something they shouldn't, or blame others for their own (admittedly neurotic) sins. But Running with Scissors never really connects the dots to this or any other thesis. In fact, it does nothing to change the perception that the recent vogue for tell-all autobiographies (which engendered the hoaxes of James Frey and Laura "JT Leroy" Albert) has mainly facilitated the same sort of displacement in which many of the movie's misfits engage. A more astute filmmaker would have tried to sort out when blame is earned and when it's a devious strategy; Murphy doesn't have anything on his mind beyond "telling a story" and goosing you with madness.
One thinks back to Terence Davies's Distant Voices, Still Lives–another amorphous film about a miserable childhood presided over by a tyrant–and observes that presentation and insight are not the same thing. Davies gives you a cause-and-effect relationship between abuse and reactive behaviour–he illustrates the processes by which one is victimized, even if he's at a loss for conclusions. Murphy hasn't nearly as much perspective: presented with a slab of suffering, he shapes it into a conventional Hollywood narrative; you're bombarded by so much and learn so little from it. You feel for poor, confused Augusten and his kindred-spirit "sister" Natalie and indeed hope they save themselves from their assorted guardians. Alas, you also get every thought driven from your head, leaving you exactly where you started.
THE DVD
Sony brings Running with Scissors to DVD in a 2.42:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that's extremely lustrous, especially considering the purposefully-muted palette; the aforementioned canary-yellow nightmare pops, though the murky browns of the Finch house are no less striking or well-defined. The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is fine for a dialogue-driven film, with excellent bass during the period soundtrack selections and voices coming through crystal clear. Extras include "Inside Outsiders" (8 mins.), in which various cast members describe their love for the characters and what they feel makes them tick. The interviews are a cut above the everybody-was-wonderful blather of most featurettes, and Bening especially speaks quite eloquently; still, claims of ambiguity are not borne out by the way the actors portray their alter egos onscreen.
"A Personal Memoir by Augusten Burroughs" (5 mins.) divulges that the author, contrary to the film's uplifting ending, battled alcoholism before going straight and penning the book that launched his career. Few other revelations are on offer, save Burroughs's awe at Murphy (creator of "Nip/Tuck") and his passion for the project. "Creating the Cuckoo's Nest" (4 mins.) is another surprisingly on-the-level clip wherein production designer Richard Sherman describes his approach to the impressive chaos of the Finch house: there's the usual blather about "the house is a character," but there's also some nuts-and-bolts on why he made the choices he made. Also included are trailers for Premonition, Stranger than Fiction, Half Nelson, Spider-Man 3, The Holiday, The Pursuit of Happyness, Volver, Curse of the Golden Flower, Adaptation., and Being Julia, with the first three titles cuing up on startup.
122 minutes; R; 2.42:1 (!6×9-enhanced); English DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1, Portuguese DD 5.1, French Dolby Surround; CC; English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Sony
