I have a lot of mixed feelings about this movie. I had been wanting to watch it for awhile now, but every time I would almost rent it...something would stop me. Last month someone from one of my book clubs chose "Running with Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs as our book club pick, and I found it so intriguing that I couldn't let the story go. The book claims to be a memoir. Now, I am not one to call anyone a liar, and I have no judgements as to whether situations in this book were true or not. It didn't really matter to me one way or another, I couldn't put it down. So I was hopeful, after finishing the book last week, that the movie would be just as interesting, twisted and yet somehow entertaining. It wasn't. There were some moments. I think that Ryan Murphy really knows what he is doing with music. I feel like the musical montage type scenes were wonderful, they were visually interesting and the musical choices absolutely perfect. However the rest of the movie was very disjointed, and left me feeling sad and empty. The book is twisted, bizarre, and yet the characters come to life and become very human, even with all their eccentricities. In the movie, there just wasn't enough time. I feel like Ryan Murphy tried to hard to make this movie about Augustens mother, Deirdre, played brilliantly by Annette Bening (who I don't always like). Her character gets way more screen time, and there were several scenes in the movie that weren't even in the book. Of course that is going to happen in a film translation of the movie, but in this case, I feel like there were too many instances that made the movie all about her. There were several other scenes that were added, that didn't really work for me, most involving the relationship between Augusten and his older boyfriend Neil (played by the usually adorable Joseph Fiennes...not so much this time around) as well as some scenes with Neil and Dr. Finch (played by the wonderful Brian Cox) that I don't remember being in the book at all. I can't say I hated the movie, but if you have never read the book, it might just end up seeming more bizarre than the book even was....which was bizarre enough I think. I think that the movie seemed to make Augusten's father out to be a not so bad guy, which i didn't sense from the book. However, I do think that the relationship between Augusten(played by Joseph Cross) and Natalie (the beautiful Evan Rachel Wood) translated very well to film, and I enjoyed all of their scenes together. I was not so fond of Gwyneth Paltrow playing the older sister named Hope, I thought it was kind of a weak performance for a character that I really liked in the book. Who knows what really happened, though I tend to think a lot of this is probably true...I do know that Augusten survived to write some magical pieces of literature and I think a lot can be said for this family that helped him make it through, no matter how bizarre and messed up that world they lived in happened to be.I think the movie comes off a little more sad than I felt that the book did. I little more depressing and much less colorful than I was hoping for. However, this movie is almost worth watching just for Bening's performance, one of her best, I think. But be prepared for an odd ride.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439289/
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