The question of the day is, does sanity of any kind present itself in "Running With Scissors?" Quite simply, insanity seems to direct the entire film, which is based on true events. "Scissors" follows a teenage Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) as he grows up with constantly feuding parents and is later adopted by an insane surrogate family. Undoubtedly psychologists will have a field day with the film, which stars Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Alec Baldwin, Gwyneth Paltrow and more.
As a teenager, things get so bad at home that Augusten's mom Deirdre (Bening) takes him to live with her therapist. It is there that audiences realize that sane people are not always the ones who treat the mentally disturbed. Brian Cox plays Doctor Finch, a therapist with issues more intense than many residents of maximum-security mental asylums. The good doctor could definitely use some of his own medicine, with a filthy home, divinely conceived bowel movements and a room behind his office used exclusively for a more base activity some men partake in with certain dirty magazines.
Augusten watches as Cox's character runs a mental asylum in his house, with a strung-out wife and two deeply troubled daughters. The two girls are encouraged by their father to engage in verbal battles with each other and one claims she is able to interpret her cat's meows.
Insanity is not limited to Doctor Finch's family. We also meet Augusten's alcoholic father. Played by Alec Baldwin, Norman Burroughs is a detached, depressed man in a marriage he loathes. His ex-wife Deirdre Burroughs goes through many phases, changing from artistic to withdrawn to angry to totally insane, with a host of mental states in between. After splitting, she explores both her artistic abilities as a struggling poet and her more repressed pleasures.
Augusten is a habitual truant who finds himself involved with a much older man and brought to the brink of insanity because of his psychotic family life. Nevertheless, in a film full of mental head cases, humor and deep meaning abound.
Anyone with a messed up family needs to watch "Running With Scissors." They are guaranteed to walk away thinking of their happy, normal and incredibly sane relatives. Such abnormality inherently leads to humor, drawing large amounts of laughter from the entire audience.
With eccentric characters and excellent music, "Running With Scissors" provides an intense glimpse into a host of issues. The film shows us tales of the clinically insane, the nature of family, love, hate, growing up and life's struggles. One will learn to appreciate, and even love, the dysfunction.
In the end, Burroughs' memoirs have been successfully brought to the silver screen, and the all-star cast reminds the audience that even through life's struggles, there is still room for a few good laughs.
