Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Cassandra Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Lee Eisenberg I heard about "Running with Scissors" when it got released but didn't get around to seeing it for years. I finally managed to. A couple of things to discuss.First of all, it's not a masterpiece but still bears watching. This story of a teenage boy is based on Augusten Burroughs's semi-autobiographical novel. I haven't read the novel but I'd like to. It's a most unusual set of people surrounding this lad: a mentally unstable mother and an alcoholic father, an eccentric psychiatrist and his even more eccentric family, and others.Also, when the movie ended, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the director is none other than Ryan Murphy, now known as the creator of shows like "Glee" and "American Horror Story". Indeed, the movie reminded me of those shows (even though I didn't know who the director was), and some of RwS's cast members appeared on them.Basically, it's one of the examples of what cinema can be when the people behind it put effort into the plot rather than into CGI. These are some of the most complex characters that I've ever seen in a movie. So far I've liked everything that I've seen from Ryan Murphy, including this. Joseph Cross, Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox, Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Kristin Chenoweth and Gabrielle Union all put on fine performances. I recommend it.

jcarltopp It is possible that I lack the intellectual understanding to appreciate this movie, but really it would be more entertaining to watch a 2 hour maintenance video of ant-farms than watching this one. Every one is gay or masturbates with pride all over their children. This movie embarrasses the field of psychology and turns the idea of poetry and artistry into angry craziness with no regard for others. Watching this you will feel all psychologists are pedophiles and all women artists are Lesbians who have gay sons, who love to destroy marriages and make drama when they don't get the attention they want. If you are considering watching this because you have nothing else better in your life, I suggest you hold off and just consider suicide, because if your not there already, this movie will get you to it.

Theodore Keating I don't really like the idea of comparing the book to the movie, but in this case I find it inevitable. I read the book and loved it, but the movie just doesn't have the same skill.... For one thing, the movie really downplayed the oddity of the everything that went on, which was really what made the memoir so detail-oriented and real, I think. But the people who made the movie just didn't have the same skill with *their* craft.... For one thing, it was a little off to cast an actor like Alec Baldwin to be the father, who had such a minimal role, really. It also seemed at times like too much emphasis was placed on the mother-- in film I suppose it's easier to place emphasis on an adult, rather than a child (a child actor), but the whole thing was supposed to be about Augusten....I really think they should have considered using voiceovers/narration by Augusten to give some depth to his point-of-view, giving something to his own narrations and insights like in the book, rather than just showing him on the edge of the scene.... Without that deep feel for the characters idiosyncrasies and the individuality of the memoirist, it's just.... boring. They just show flatly this one doing this and that one doing that, but there's just no real appreciation for how crazy it all was. .... It sounds stupid and obvious to say that it should have been more like the book, but it really should have been.(7/10)

tombrookes2007 RWS utilises a great support cast (Cox and Bening) to prop up a wonderfully weird ball of head zapping expression. The intense film follows a single child, ?, who is a young gay man left by his splitting parents in the hands of a wacky psychiatrist and his non conventional family. The premise of the film is a idiopathic mother that brings her son into a world of psychology and disorganised abnormality.This film was praised for its individuality, ambition and the few points that stick out as funny, but it is a grueling tightrope walk of a watch (verging between madness and genius). For me the film was just too wacky to be enjoyed, and whilst it has moments of amusement (I.e the mastabatorium) and clever observations into characters, it is too dramatic a drama to be credible. It was based on a complicated book and some of this was lost, but other bits captured and improved.