My Movie Weekend Pt. 1: Running with Scissors

It was a day at the movies at The Grove starting with "Running With Scissors" based on the best-selling memoir by Augusten Burroughs. As Burrough's narcissist nervous breakdown of a mother, Annette Bening gives the kind of performance for which Oscars are won. In recent years, Benning has been doing some of the best work of any actress with superb work in "Being Julia," "Mrs. Harris" and now "Scissors."

In addition to Bening, the cast is top-notch with Joseph Cross as the teenage Augusten, Joseph Fiennes as his troubled lover (and, technically his much-older adopted brother), Alec Baldwin as his alcoholic absentee father, and Brian Cox, as the controlling and probably mad psychiatrist who dopes up Bening's character of Valium then convinces her to let him adopt Augusten. He joins the shrink's family which consists of his broken-spirited wife (Jill Clayburgh's best role in years) and two daughters played by Gwyneth Paltrow (not given much to do here) and the always good Evan Rachel Wood.

The movie mixes the drama with plenty of doses of comedy with writer-director Ryan Murphy doing a terrific job of balancing the two. I might have enjoyed the movie more though if it had not been based on a true story because what this kid goes through is so terrible. And yet, he is so resilient.

I do have a few quibbles with "Scissors" though. First off, the 20-year-old Cross just seems a tad too old to be playing a 13 and 14 year old boy. So when he begins an affair with Fiennes' character, you don't get the true picture that this is a man 20 years older than him. Also, Clayburgh's character is not fully fleshed out. To be eccentric or depressed is one thing but she doesn't seem crazy enough to sit on the sofa all day eating dog kibble.

But overall, very entertaining film thanks largely to Bening's tour de force.