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Freudulent RUNNING
WITH SCISSORS: Written and directed by Ryan Murphy. Cinematography,
Christopher Baffa. Music, James S. Levine. Starring Annette Bening,
Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Joseph Cross,
Jill Clayburgh and Gwyneth Paltrow. TriStar Pictures, 2006. R. 116 minutes.
Stars: We're all familiar with the sporting cliché that when a team loses, individual feats don't matter. A home run hit in a losing effort in baseball, for example, is only statistically meaningful. So it is in film, where even a truly great performance can't rescue a project that's content to be mediocre. Running With Scissors is alive with great performances, but they can't redeem the wandering, hesitating creature that is this bizarre black comedy.
Scissors is the story of Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross), a delicate boy who becomes the ward of his mother's psychologist when his mother gives him away. The film is based on the popular memoir, the veracity of which came under fire last year when the scandal erupted over James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Perhaps in an effort to suppress additional criticism, the film cites "the personal memoir" of Augusten Burroughs as its source. Personal memoir? That's a genre I don't know. To me, it's Hollywoodspeak for "we made stuff up." Deirdre Burroughs (Annette Bening) is Augusten's narcissistic mother, a poet who'd rather write her Pulitzer acceptance speech than focus on, say, writing poetry. To Augusten, she can do no wrong. He submits to her mock poetry readings with intensely focused adoration. Bening, styled to resemble Jane Fonda, is fearless as the deluded Deirdre, but the early scenes don't crackle with the satiric energy they should. The movie just isn't comfortable with itself early on, and therefore neither are we. When Deirdre isn't planning her next book tour (she's self-published), she's emasculating her alcoholic husband, Norman (Alec Baldwin). Hope arrives for Deirdre in the form of Dr. Finch (the great Brian Cox, recently of Deadwood). Finch recognizes Deirdre's gifts; he's the sympathetic male she's been missing her whole life. But Finch is no ordinary therapist. For one thing, he's scatologically obsessed, preferring excrement to tea leaves for its ability to portend the future. He's quite possibly insane, but I can't be sure of that, because Scissors isn't sure, either. But if you think Dr. Finch is a crackpot, wait until you meet his family. The Finches put the func in dysfunction. They live together in a squalid mansion the color of bubble gum. Finch dispenses medication to his offspring like tic-tacs. Agnes Finch (Jill Clayburgh), the good doctor's wife, eats dog kibble from the bag. His daughter Natalie (Evan Rachel Wood) likes to play doctor with an actual electroshock therapy machine. His other daughter Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) makes a kitty stew — or does she? Into this big carnival tent of weirdos walks Austen. Welcome to your new family, kid. The repulsive wonder of the Finches is a welcome change. But the shift to Finchville can't elevate Scissors to more than a sequence of moody set pieces. The problem, quite simply, is Dr. Finch: he's intended to be the film's villain, but Scissors leaves Finch's responsibility in doubt. Is he an evil manipulator with a heart like a raisin (if a heart can be found at all), or is he an eccentric healer for whom breaking the law is a means to an end? The film is too ambiguous on this topic, severely limiting our ability to assess him and, by extension, his family of patients. It's a measure of how unsympathetic Finch becomes that when his family finally revolts against him, the movie instantly springs to life. For a moment the scenes have the off-kilter intensity and black humor of a great Six Feet Under episode. The film feels energized and focused. But Finch is still a gaping hole in the center. And Augusten? Too often, he's just along for the ride. It isn't until the end that he asserts himself, but by then it's far too late. In fact, Scissors is the first film I've seen that needs more narration. These days, films employ a narrator too easily, which can undermine a film by breaking the "show, don't tell" rule of storytelling. A constant voiceover can feel like a crutch, a shortcut. But the Scissors script is so wobbly around Augusten's development (to cite just one example) that one crutch wouldn't be a bad thing.
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