There's not enough soap in the world that can equate itself to the gargantuan, but somehow morbidly watchable mess, that is RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, a movie that has been mis-marketed as a black comedy in all of its trailers -- mostly focusing on Annette Bening's take on a deranged Auntie Mame mixed with an even shriller variation of her devastating suburban hausfrau in American BEAUTY as she quarrels endlessly with Alec Baldwin who here plays George to her Martha, a scene in which Gwyneth Paltrow interrupts a shock therapy about to begin, and a botched attempt to create a skyline that prompts Brian Cox's priceless remark about "irony".
For the most part, the movie is well written, and even small, nearly thankless parts, such as the one the once-great Jill Clayburgh plays, have enough life to stand on their own in the bizarro world that Augusten Burroughs' memoirs has placed them, but RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is riddled with a progressive foray into unstable ground that ceases to be funny and becomes an exercise in irritation and all the time it treads the very delicate waters that is the relationship which develops between a thirteen year old Augusten (Joseph Cross) and Cox's thirty-three year old 'adopted' son (Joseph Fiennes). (That, in fact, would have made a much better film had it focused on this aspect, but having Cross, already twenty, playing a young teen, is a too "safe" to be involving.
And neither is the overlapping among of drama that unfolds here. There is, in fact, too much of it going on here at the same time, and while all of them peak at a fantastic montage to Al Stewart's languid "The Year of the Cat" (the best part of the movie), there isn't much else that warrants pondering. Just when characters seem to become sympathetic, they reverse into types that belong in the most lurid tale of excess ever told. Much like a similar movie -- WAH WAH -- this is too much noise, too much theatricality, eccentricity, and not enough believability. But oh hell -- it's still a perverse incursion into schadenfreude.
For the most part, the movie is well written, and even small, nearly thankless parts, such as the one the once-great Jill Clayburgh plays, have enough life to stand on their own in the bizarro world that Augusten Burroughs' memoirs has placed them, but RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is riddled with a progressive foray into unstable ground that ceases to be funny and becomes an exercise in irritation and all the time it treads the very delicate waters that is the relationship which develops between a thirteen year old Augusten (Joseph Cross) and Cox's thirty-three year old 'adopted' son (Joseph Fiennes). (That, in fact, would have made a much better film had it focused on this aspect, but having Cross, already twenty, playing a young teen, is a too "safe" to be involving.
And neither is the overlapping among of drama that unfolds here. There is, in fact, too much of it going on here at the same time, and while all of them peak at a fantastic montage to Al Stewart's languid "The Year of the Cat" (the best part of the movie), there isn't much else that warrants pondering. Just when characters seem to become sympathetic, they reverse into types that belong in the most lurid tale of excess ever told. Much like a similar movie -- WAH WAH -- this is too much noise, too much theatricality, eccentricity, and not enough believability. But oh hell -- it's still a perverse incursion into schadenfreude.