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Running With Scissors (2003)

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All Critics
Top Critics

Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 129
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 90

Despite a few great performances, the film lacks the sincerity and emotional edge of Burroughs' well-loved memoir.

Average Rating: 5/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 26

Despite a few great performances, the film lacks the sincerity and emotional edge of Burroughs' well-loved memoir.

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Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 130,836

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Movie Info

Screen newcomer Joseph Cross portrays Augusten Burroughs in director Ryan Murphy's film adaptation of author Burroughs' best-selling personal memoir of the same name. A child of the 1970s whose alcoholic father, Norman (Alec Baldwin), and delusional, unpublished poet mother, Deirdre (Annette Bening), serve as the dictionary definition of the word "dysfunctional," Augusten is sent by his mother to live with her eccentric psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), when his disagreeable parents

R, 2 hr. 2 min.

Drama, Comedy

Directed By: Ryan Murphy

In Theaters: Oct 20, 2006 Wide

On DVD: Jul 29, 2003

Box Office:$6.8M

Sony Pictures

Running With Scissors Trailer & Photos

More Photos (2)

Cast

Annette Bening
Deirdre Burroughs
Brian Cox
Dr. Finch
Joseph Fiennes
Neil Bookman
Evan Rachel Wood
Natalie Finch
Alec Baldwin
Norman Burroughs
Jill Clayburgh
Agnes Finch
Joseph Cross
Augusten Burroughs
Gwyneth Paltrow
Hope Finch
Gabrielle Union
Dorothy
Kristin Chenoweth
Fern Stewart
Patrick Wilson
Michael Shephard
Colleen Camp
Joan
Dagmara Dominczyk
Suzanne
Jack Kaeding
Six-Year-Old Augusten B...
Gabriel Guedj
Poo
Nancy Ellen Cassaro
Christy (1978 Poetry Cl...
Omid Abtahi
Restaurant Manager
Julie Remala
Restaurant Waitress
Will Carter
Officer Button
Bonnie Weis
Cocktail Waitress
Dakotah Masset
Waitress
Marianne Muellerleile
Nurse

Critic Reviews for Running With Scissors

All Critics (137) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (40) | Rotten (93) | DVD (16)

In the real world, mental illness is a serious problem. In this film, it gives everyone a license to run around like characters in a Lewis Carroll story -- all of it set to predictable pop hits from the 1970s.

October 31, 2006 Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper

| Comments (2)

Richard Roeper

Ebert & Roeper

Top Critic

As dysfunctional family movies go, this is one skip. It doesn't just run with the scissors, it falls on them.

October 29, 2006 Full Review Source: ReelViews

| Comment

James Berardinelli

ReelViews

Top Critic

If the book was deadpan, the movie is more -- or less -- dead.

October 27, 2006 Comment

Steven Rea

Philadelphia Inquirer

Top Critic

This is an Igby Goes Down without the laughs, a morbid miscalculation of The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou size.

October 27, 2006 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel

| Comment

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

The film trips over its willy-nilly story line and falls on its own blade.

October 27, 2006 Comment

Colin Covert

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Top Critic

It's one of the most clear-headed -- and twistedly entertaining -- views of drug dependency and insanity I've ever seen.

October 27, 2006 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle

| Comment

Bruce Westbrook

Houston Chronicle

Top Critic

Strictly for the Anderson-Baumbach crowd of privileged idiots

August 28, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion

| Comment

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Based on Augusten Burrough's memoir, "Running With Scissors" traverses the '70's American zeitgeist in eccentric personal terms when the American dream plummeted into horror with the aid of prescription drugs.

April 24, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com

| Comment

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Dysfunctional-family memoir wallows in smug humor.

July 16, 2008 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media

| Comment

Cynthia Fuchs

Common Sense Media

Running With Scissors is a schizophrenic film. It simply doesn't know what it wants to be %u2014 a witty and wacky satire, or a serious and heartfelt drama.

February 28, 2008 Full Review Source: BrandonFibbs.com

| Comments (2)

Brandon Fibbs

BrandonFibbs.com

For every aspect that is depressing, there something that is fresh and uplifting, and it is credit to writer director Ryan Murphy for capturing the mood of Burroughs' book so faithfully.

March 23, 2007 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile

| Comment

Urban Cinefile Critics

Urban Cinefile

The excruciating display of bohemian spoils wears the word "delightful" in quotation marks, with a theatre accent.

March 15, 2007 Full Review | Comment

Mark Palermo

Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia) Source: Coast (Halifax, Nova Scotia)

The first half rolls along like an excitable child hoping to entertain with each new stunt. But it loses the book's dark humour. Running with Scissors? More like a stumble.

February 2, 2007 Full Review Source: thelondonpaper

| Comment

Stuart McGurk

thelondonpaper

With subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean, Running With Scissors now threatens to cause havoc in almost every corner of the globe.

February 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine

| Comment

Ed Gonzalez

Slant Magazine

Running With Scissors has a great cast and an appropriately chaotic nature, but it never really adds up to anything and fails to hit its emotional targets.

February 1, 2007 Full Review Source: ViewLondon

| Comment

Matthew Turner

ViewLondon

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Audience Reviews for Running With Scissors

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Cast: Annette Bening, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Vanessa Redgrave, Kristin Chenoweth, Colleen Camp, Patrick Wilson Director: Ryan Murphy Summary: When Deirdre Burroughs (Annette Bening) impulsively decides that her adolescent son Augusten (Joseph

June 30, 2009

♥˩ƳИИ ƜѲѲƉƧ♥

Super Reviewer

30/07/2010 (TELEVISION)This puts the "Drama" in "Dramatic" and makes it seem poetic. A very intense story with some major issues that weigh a ton, in madness.It started off seemingly normal and interesting but as the story unfolds it takes a very shocking turn with crazy characters and a fiery story that burns with

August 1, 2010

EightThirty .

Super Reviewer

Running With Scissors Quotes

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1. Augusten Burroughs: According to Hope, Freud died of kitty leukemia. According to me, Freud died of being trapped in a laundry basket for four days without food or water.
– Submitted by Angela T (5 days ago)

Character	Quote
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