"Running With Scissors" is a film that perfectly demonstrates the difference between what's important to one person, and what's important to everybody else. You can tell somebody that your cat died, and they will feel sorry for you, but they won't feel your pain. And they probably won't feel that your cat's death was a time in your life that would be a well rounded exploration into your character or have any specific thematic resonance.
Somebody should have explained this to Augusten Burroughs before he decided to turn his memoir (which, for all I know, is a ripping read) into a star-studded feature film. His young life, the sole subject matter, was probably interesting at the time, but on screen, it goes exactly like this: Young Augusten (Joseph Cross) has a mentally unbalanced mother (Annette Bening) and a hopeless alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin). The dad gets sick of it, and leaves. The mother, who fancies herself a brilliant poet, sees a shrink (Brian Cox) about all the grievances she has with her life-long oppression. His solution is to, ultimately, adopt Augusten and act as both his father and psychiatrist in a home only fractionally worse than the one it replaces. Everyone in this home is ludicrously damaged in the head. It's strange, and at times it's a little sad, but still, no one really wants to hear all about your dead cat.
As it happens, a cat does die in this movie. Not to give too much away, or give the wrong idea, but the pet dies as a result of a sorely dysfunctional household that, despite the profession of its patriarch, is entirely tolerant of mental illness. Yes, that's a shame. But this is the film's only punch line. A dead cat, a few broken homes, a demolished kitchen ceiling, wasted human potential, a lot of wasted money. All because of what? A sorely dysfunctional household that, despite the profession of its patriarch, is entirely tolerant of mental illness.
There are points that seem like they might have had a greater social relevance, commenting on things like feminism, sexuality, psychology. Sadly, these things don't ever really leave the Finch house, so even in such an obviously 70's set and style, nothing has much of a context. I, more than anyone, hate a film being dismissed as the sum of its parts, but in all honesty this felt like nothing a hell of a lot more than two hours of strange people doing strange things. I will say, however, that despite all these gripes, it's very hard to take it out on the actors, and given everything this is an achievement and a half. The performances here are all of a respectable standard, with particular attention being demanded by Bening and more subtly roused by Joseph Fiennes and Evan Rachel Wood (Baldwin and Paltrow are very generous here and they come out richer for it). The problem is not at all the acting, it's the characters themselves. Nothing happens to them. Even things that should create change in personalities or arcs, such as losing virginity at 14 to a much older male, don't seem to have any such effects. And yes, it is misguided to criticize lack of character development in a memoir piece, but that doesn't change the fact that a key part of the decision to film this autobiography should have been to acknowledge popular expectation of the film medium, and people expect movies to entertain.
"It doesn't matter where I start" Burroughs tells us over a black screen in the opening segment "You won't believe me anyway" I can't help but think that the mentality that it doesn't matter where you start (or where you go from there) is probably what brought this ship down, and not to be overly mean about it, but for future reference, audiences will believe what you tell them. They won't necessarily care.
Somebody should have explained this to Augusten Burroughs before he decided to turn his memoir (which, for all I know, is a ripping read) into a star-studded feature film. His young life, the sole subject matter, was probably interesting at the time, but on screen, it goes exactly like this: Young Augusten (Joseph Cross) has a mentally unbalanced mother (Annette Bening) and a hopeless alcoholic father (Alec Baldwin). The dad gets sick of it, and leaves. The mother, who fancies herself a brilliant poet, sees a shrink (Brian Cox) about all the grievances she has with her life-long oppression. His solution is to, ultimately, adopt Augusten and act as both his father and psychiatrist in a home only fractionally worse than the one it replaces. Everyone in this home is ludicrously damaged in the head. It's strange, and at times it's a little sad, but still, no one really wants to hear all about your dead cat.
As it happens, a cat does die in this movie. Not to give too much away, or give the wrong idea, but the pet dies as a result of a sorely dysfunctional household that, despite the profession of its patriarch, is entirely tolerant of mental illness. Yes, that's a shame. But this is the film's only punch line. A dead cat, a few broken homes, a demolished kitchen ceiling, wasted human potential, a lot of wasted money. All because of what? A sorely dysfunctional household that, despite the profession of its patriarch, is entirely tolerant of mental illness.
There are points that seem like they might have had a greater social relevance, commenting on things like feminism, sexuality, psychology. Sadly, these things don't ever really leave the Finch house, so even in such an obviously 70's set and style, nothing has much of a context. I, more than anyone, hate a film being dismissed as the sum of its parts, but in all honesty this felt like nothing a hell of a lot more than two hours of strange people doing strange things. I will say, however, that despite all these gripes, it's very hard to take it out on the actors, and given everything this is an achievement and a half. The performances here are all of a respectable standard, with particular attention being demanded by Bening and more subtly roused by Joseph Fiennes and Evan Rachel Wood (Baldwin and Paltrow are very generous here and they come out richer for it). The problem is not at all the acting, it's the characters themselves. Nothing happens to them. Even things that should create change in personalities or arcs, such as losing virginity at 14 to a much older male, don't seem to have any such effects. And yes, it is misguided to criticize lack of character development in a memoir piece, but that doesn't change the fact that a key part of the decision to film this autobiography should have been to acknowledge popular expectation of the film medium, and people expect movies to entertain.
"It doesn't matter where I start" Burroughs tells us over a black screen in the opening segment "You won't believe me anyway" I can't help but think that the mentality that it doesn't matter where you start (or where you go from there) is probably what brought this ship down, and not to be overly mean about it, but for future reference, audiences will believe what you tell them. They won't necessarily care.