Running With Scissors: Drama. Starring Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Alec
Baldwin, Evan Rachel Wood, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jill Clayburgh. Directed by Ryan
Murphy. (R. 122 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
In his shocking 2002 memoir “Running With Scissors,” Augusten Burroughs
described a childhood so hellish it’s remarkable he survived to tell the tale.
But stories about the mentally disturbed popping pills and engaging in
screaming matches don’t make for entertaining movies. “Prozac Nation” proved
such a downer, it wound up going straight to video.
Perhaps with this in mind, director Ryan Murphy works overtime to lighten
up his screen adaptation of “Scissors.” As a teenager, Augusten (Joseph Cross)
is sent to live with his mother’s nutty shrink so Mom (Annette Bening) can
focus on her bad poetry and prodigious consumption of Valium. Studying
cosmetology as a diversion from the craziness around him, Augusten practices on
the psychiatrist’s daughters. First, there’s a shot of the rebellious Natalie
(Evan Rachel Wood) with her teased hair country-western-diva heights. Then the
camera moseys over to her stern, Bible-reading sister (Gwyneth Paltrow), whose
dozens of cornrows jiggle while she stirs a pot of stew.
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The visual is hilarious, and what you might expect from Murphy, the
creator of “Nip / Tuck.” For his first feature film — a wildly erratic,
often annoying but never boring endeavor — he lavishes attention on the
appearance of Augusten’s families, both the real and surrogate one. As Deirdre
Burroughs, Bening is swathed in caftans and, when Deirdre seeks to rid herself
of all inhibitions, in hippie-style leather and beads.
Natalie dazzles in Cleopatra eye makeup. Her father, the malevolent Dr.
Finch (Brian Cox), has ensconced his mousey wife (skillfully underplayed by
Jill Clayburgh) and offspring in a dilapidated hot-pink mansion. Intentionally
reminiscent of an Edward Gorey illustration, the joint is crammed with broken
dolls, stuffed birds and other colorful artifacts.
The problem with all this eye candy is that it distracts from Augusten’s
terrifying experience. Not only does his mother pawn him off on a dangerous
hack, who prescribes five-hour-a-day therapy, doles out uppers and downers like
Halloween treats, and proudly shows off the room he uses to masturbate between
clients, but the boy’s alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin, quick becoming the best
supporting player in the business) refuses any responsibility for his
upbringing as well.
When an underage Augusten announces that he is gay to a 35-year-old stray
who also has been unofficially adopted by the Finches, the man initiates him
into sex. Although the incident is portrayed cavalierly, it still amounts to
rape.
The crucial relationship in the film as well as the book is between mother
and son. Bening is too smart and imaginative to portray Deirdre as another
Mommie Dearest. She’s far more complicated than that, a bundle of unfulfilled
ambition. The impact of all those tranquilizers is reflected in her eyes, which
become duller over time. (Contrast her dazed look with Katharine Hepburn’s
blazing pupils as a mad matriarch in “Long Day’s Journey Into Night”; different
drugs have different effects.)
In early scenes, however, Deirdre is an Auntie Mame to her adoring child,
who listens to her emote into a microphone a poem she plans to submit to the
New Yorker. Augusten assures her that the magazine will publish it — even
though she’s already been rejected by Virginia Quarterly. As the teenage
Augusten, Cross, a relative unknown who also is in “Flags of Our Fathers,”
holds his own against Bening. The love Augusten feels for her is palpable,
making his confusion at his banishment from her life that much more painful.
Cox has the most difficult task of all, to somehow humanize a dispenser of
evil. His Dr. Feelgood is so hypnotic that you can understand how vulnerable
people would fall under his spell.
With the exception of Paltrow, who barely makes her presence felt, the
cast works hard to keep up the momentum of “Running With Scissors.” Its flaws
are Murphy’s fault. He flails around seeking the right tone and never quite
finds it.
– Advisory: Disturbing sexual scenes and language.
E-mail Ruthe Stein at rstein@sfchronicle.com.