Running with Scissors (film)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Running with Scissors | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Ryan Murphy |
| Produced by | Ryan Murphy Augusten Burroughs Brad Pitt Brad Grey |
| Written by | Augusten Burroughs Ryan Murphy |
| Starring | Annette Bening Brian Cox Joseph Fiennes Evan Rachel Wood Alec Baldwin Joseph Cross |
| Music by | James S. Levine |
| Cinematography | Christopher Baffa |
| Editing by | Byron Smith |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures Plan B Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | October 27, 2006 |
| Running time | Theatrical cut 116 min. DVD 122 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12 million |
| Gross revenue | $6,754,898 |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Argentina: | 13 |
| Australia: | MA |
| Brazil: | 14 |
| Canada (Ontario): | 14A |
| Finland: | K-15 |
| Germany: | 12 |
| Ireland: | 16 |
| Malaysia: | Banned |
| Netherlands: | 6 |
| New Zealand: | R16 |
| Singapore: | M18 |
| South Korea: | 15 |
| United Kingdom: | 15 |
| United States: | R |
Running With Scissors is a Golden Globe-nominated 2006 film directed by Ryan Murphy.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Based on the memoir Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, the film is a semi-autobiographical account of Burroughs' childhood. His mother (an aspiring poet, played by Annette Bening, who idolises Anne Sexton), perceiving an ill-fated upbringing, places him under the care of her unorthodox psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), the eccentric patriarch of an oddball family.
At the age of twelve, Burroughs (played by Joseph Cross) finds himself in Victorian squalor living an unconventional youth amongst the doctor’s family, and is subject to irregular visits by his increasingly unsound mother. At one point, Burroughs befriends Neil Bookman (Joseph Fiennes), Finch's adopted 33-year-old son, and the two enter an erratic sexual relationship.
The story is of a childhood in which the boundary between reality and fantasy is ignored and finally broken; as, ultimately, is the irreplaceable bond between mother and son.
In an interview regarding the movie, Augusten Burroughs stated that he felt the movie was about one's quest for family.
[edit] Divergence from book
The film diverges from the book in several important respects. A key aspect of the book is the narrator's progress through adolescence, but the film has one actor, Joseph Cross (age 19), who plays the central role throughout most of the movie, including scenes where the character is age 12 or 13. The movie shys away from many of the sexual aspects of the book. The nature of Augusten's first sexual episode with Bookman is different (the film does not portray it as a rape as the book does), the nature of Augusten's discovery of his mother's lesbianism is changed (this is presented in the film as the discovery of her kissing her lover, but in the book he walks in on them engaged in cunnilingus), and the allegation of Dr. Finch's rape of Deirdre is transformed into an embezzlement of money. On balance this gives the movie more of a PG-13 feel than the book would seem to warrant and substantially alters the forces that shaped the writer. The character of Bookman also takes on a dangerous element in the film that he lacks in the book (at the end of the movie he is shown hovering over a sleeping Dr. Finch with a pair of scissors, but this does not occur in the book). Moreover, the film glosses over and/or distorts much of the book's philosophy. For example, the film has Augusten state that life is "just a series of surprises," whereas in the book he has a somewhat bleaker yet more comical tone: "Our lives are one endless stretch of misery punctuated by processed fast foods and the occasional crisis or amusing curiosity." Another divergence from the book is that Natalie, Evan Rachel Wood, is described as being fat in the novel, but is clearly not overweight in the film.
[edit] Cast
- Annette Bening as Deidre Burroughs
- Brian Cox as Dr. Finch
- Joseph Fiennes as Neil Bookman
- Evan Rachel Wood as Natalie Finch
- Alec Baldwin as Norman Burroughs
- Joseph Cross as Augusten Burroughs
- Jill Clayburgh as Agnes Finch
- Gwyneth Paltrow as Hope Finch
- Gabrielle Union as Dorothy
- Patrick Wilson as Michael Shephard
- Kristin Chenoweth as Fern Stewart
- Colleen Camp as Joan
[edit] Trivia
- "Running With Scissors" is a song written by Cindy Nelson based on the movie.
- This film reunited Ryan Murphy with several actors associated with his television drama Nip/Tuck, including Alec Baldwin and Jill Clayburgh.
- The movie was produced, in part, by Brad Pitt, who was once engaged to star Gwyneth Paltrow.
- Running with Scissors also reunited Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes, who were last together in the Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love.
- Film critic Richard Roeper named this his worst movie of 2006.
- Julianne Moore was originally cast as "Deirdre Burroughs" but dropped out a few days before filming was set to begin so she could star in the film Children of Men.
