Review: Running With Scissors (2006)

Running With Scissors
2006
116 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Harrison Ford often tells a story about his earliest days in showbiz.
Meeting with a producer after a small role, he was told that he didn't
have what it took to be a star. The producer told him that when he
looked at (I think...) Paul Newman playing a grocery bagger, he would
say, "that guy, when I look at him, he looks like a star!" Ford dryly
responded, "I thought you should be saying 'gee, that looks like a
grocery bagger'?"

It is unfortunate in this day and age that what passes for great
acting is often showy and over-the-top while subtle character
immersion is often dismissed if not outright criticized. In our film
world, over-the-top showboats like Roberto Benigni and Angelina Jolie
win Oscars while actors who refuse to be larger than their characters
(such as Ford, Keanu Reeves, and Kevin Costner) are constantly
attacked as being wooden or un-charismatic.

The reason I bring this up is because most of the press involved with
Running With Scissors is focused on Annette Bening's allegedly Oscar-
worthy leading role as a mentally ill, fame-seeking, delusional,
hysterical mother to the lead character Augusten Burroughs (it is his
memoirs upon which this movie is based). Bening is fine (she's rarely
been less than fine) in what's actually a supporting role, but most of
her many 'big scenes' have the whiff of 'acting' to them, as if the
words 'for your consideration' should be burned into the film as a
running ticker. Ironically, she is the lone weak point in an
otherwise stunningly acted film, with terrific performances
compensating for a muddled, disjointed narrative.

The plot... Augustus Burroughs (Joseph Cross, who is in nearly every
frame of this film and finally crosses into leading man territory) is
born into a most dysfunctional household. His mother is mentally ill
and obsessed with being famous to the point of emotional child abuse.
Augustus's father (Alec Baldwin, nearly stealing the film with about
fifteen subtle, heartbreaking minutes of screen time) has had enough,
spending his days teaching then coming home to a wife who inexplicably
resents him and a son who takes her side. "I really don't see
anything of myself in you," he states to his ten-year-old son, and it
rings true not as an insult but as a self-lacerating acknowledgement
of his own futility and failure as a father.

As he reaches adolescence, Augustus is puzzlingly sent to live at the
home of his mother's equally insane psychologist (Brian Cox, slightly
over the top but entertaining as always). In this large, completely
unkempt home lives Dr. Finch, his two daughters (the rebellious and
emotionally wounded Evan Rachel Wood and the religious and obedient
Gwyneth Paltrow), his schizophrenic thirty-four year-old son who lives
in the barn (Joseph Fiennes), and the doctor's emotionally shattered
wife (Jill Clayburgh). That's really all the plot one needs, as the
film then becomes a character study as all the various freaks and
bystanders try to come to grips with their psychoses in an
occasionally sitcomish fashion.

It is Jill Clayburgh who truly owns the movie with her devastatingly
sad portrayal of a normal woman who has resigned herself to an unhappy
life as a den mother of uncaring freaks. Bening may win the Oscar (if
Helen Mirren doesn't deservedly win for The Queen), but it's Clayburgh
who will make you shed tears.

As for the non-acting components, the film is a bit of a mess. While
these damaged souls are treated sympathetically, our sympathy is far
more tied to the bystanders (Cross, Wood, Baldwin, and Clayburgh),
whose chances for a normal and happy life have been sabotaged. The
biggest problem is that the film really has no reason for being,
nothing to teach or explore beyond the train-wreck factor, along with
the relief that your family wasn't this freakish and hurtful. We
watch as these insane people do insane and damaging things to each
other, merely passive observers to the chaos. There is no clear focus
as to whether this is supposed to be comedy or tragedy and there
really is no overriding theme to the whole adventure. Also
problematic is the entire third act, which has no less than four false
endings.

The film is an acting treat, with a quality cast of character actor
veterans doing their thing with meaty character parts. Cross is
fantastic, as are Clayburgh and Baldwin. Bening, Cox, and the rest
all do what they must. They take a muddled and overly pointless movie
and make a film that is, in the end, worth seeing.

Grade: B-