A film full of star power - the immortal Jill Clayburgh, Patrick Wilson, the always-fine Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Evan Rachel Wood, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes (to name only a few), and an excellent Australian Joseph Cross as the film's main character, Augusten Burroughs. The story is a twisted, true tale of a young lad who is pawned off by his mentally unstable mother (Bening) to a creepy therapist Dr. Finch (Cox). Augusten lives many years within the wonky family and survives no end of strangeness from them, his mother and his alcoholic father (Baldwin). The story is very sad but director Ryan Murphy plays it all with a hearty note of zaniness which makes the sadness more poignant. This film received very mixed reviews, and is, I think, a love-it or hate-it kind of flick. Running with Scissors cuts on many levels and shows both the true harm, and ultimate resilience, growing up in a disfunctional family can wrought.
My rating 8 out of 10.
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