Knight at the Movies ARCHIVES
The Augusten Burrough's mega-selling memoir hits the screen and Christopher Nolan's unmagical follow-up to Batman Begins
Dysfunctional families have always made great material for the movies.  As far back as the 1938 Best Picture Oscar winner You Can’t
Take It With You
audiences have loved watching the crazy antics of eccentric but lovable families.  At some point eccentric families at
the movies stopped being quite so innocently funny and morphed into the black comedies of dysfunction of today.  These movies –
American Beauty, The Chumscrubber, and Little Miss Sunshine – are direct descendants of the charming eccentrics of old (the sweet old
lady poisoners and the crazy brother of
Arsenic & Old Lace) but have an acrid tang that springs from the rampant suburban malaise
they satirize.  
Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm, not quite ten years old, would today probably have more success if it tossed in some comedy
with the emotional ennui.

Running With Scissors, based on the coming of age chronicle (amidst a houseful of nut cases) by writer Augusten Burroughs, is
just such a picture.  Considering the source material, it’s no surprise to find it portrays the Mt. Everest of dysfunctional families.  But
it also makes perfect sense that this movie, based on the memoirs of a gay man and directed by Ryan Murphy (in his feature
debut), the openly gay creator-writer-director of the most homoerotic show on TV, “Nip/Tuck,” would have a gay sensibility and it
does – though that’s not immediately apparent on the surface.  Indeed, it may appear that in shifting the movie’s focus away from
the book’s central gay affair and graphic details of the sexual encounters between Augusten and the alternately creepy/sexy
Bookman (played to letter perfection by Joseph Fiennes), Murphy has watered down the film’s gay content.  The trailer barely
mentioned Fiennes or the Bookman character and I fretted that here was going to be another example of Hollywood’s subtle anti-
gay agenda.

But it turns out that this is actually a case of Murphy zeroing in on the book’s most fascinating character, Deirdre, Augusten’s
mother.  The decision to shift the movie away from Augusten the narrator, who is sweet and put upon, to the much more compelling,
overbearing mother is like seeing “Great Expectations” with Miss Havisham as the star of the piece and with Pip as more of a
mascot.  Tempestuous Margo Channing is endlessly more interesting than conniving Eve Harrington and so it is with Deirdre and
Augusten.  Was it Murphy’s gay sensibility that helped tip the balance ever so slightly in Deirdre’s direction?  Or just plain good
sense?  Either way – it – and the performance of Annette Bening in the role – elevates the movie beyond the book.   And to
Murphy's credit (and Joseph Cross’ sweet natured, befuddled performance) the Augusten character doesn’t get lost in the shuffle in
the process.

The story commences during the mid-70s when the marriage of Deirdre, a frustrated housewife to heavy drinker Norman (played by
Alec Baldwin in a very creepy turn) is falling apart.  Deirdre has the soul and temperament of a poet but none of the talent to justify
her outrageous narcissism.  Young Augusten, the couple’s only son is ignored by the father and used by the mother as a gopher,
forced audience member for her dreadful poems, and shoulder to cry on after multiple rejections from publishers.  One fateful day
the couple attends a therapy session with Dr. Finch (Brian Cox) who immediately suggests intensive therapy of five hours a day to
save the marriage.  Norman demurs but Deirdre intuitively understands that here is the sympathetic voice she’s been looking for all
along.  Within seconds of the first solo session she’s under the spell of Dr. Finch (and is almost as quickly popping her first valium to
the tune of “The Things We Do For Love”).

Taken with Dr. Finch and getting in touch with her budding lesbianism, Deirdre convinces herself that the increasingly troubled
Augusten would be better off with the doctor’s family and without so much as a by your leave signs adoption papers to make it
happen.  It’s at this point that the movie shifts to Augusten and the Addams Family crazies.  The mother, Agnes (Jill Clayburgh) who
watches “Dark Shadows” and eats dog food, Hope (Gwyneth Paltrow) the weird older daughter who worships the father and Natalie
(Rachel Evan Wood), the younger, sluttish daughter who becomes Augusten’s co-conspirator and teaches him to bus stop and act
out his frustrations.  The menagerie also includes the schizophrenic Bookman (Joseph Fiennes) who becomes the teenaged
Augusten’s first lover.  The house they all live in – one of those dilapidated mansions at the end of the block with the bathtubs and
other junk piled up in the front yard – is a triumph for set designer Matthew Ferguson.

The craziness ascends (to the tune of some snappy 70s tunes like “Bennie & the Jets” and “Year of the Cat” – the movie’s musical
pop culture references are pitch perfect) until Augusten finds an unlikely ally in Agnes and the movie’s inevitable conclusion.  What
will resonate after this funhouse movie is over (it’s much sunnier than the book or Murphy’s work on the sour but sexy “Nip/Tuck”
would lead one to believe) are the bravura performances of Bening, Cross, and in a welcome comeback, Clayburgh.  Murphy’s script
has given Bening a role that’s nearly as delicious as the one Frank Perry crafted for Faye Dunaway in 1981.  But this time the camp
is built into the role from the outset and it’s not likely that Bening will have to spend years distancing herself from her triumphant,
multi-faceted portrayal the way that Dunaway has for her Joan Crawford.  This
Mommie Dearest of a part might even find Bening at
long last in the Oscar winner’s circle.  Now wouldn’t that be a triumph for Murphy’s covert gay sensibility as well?

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There are three elements to a magic trick: the pledge, the turn, and finally,
The Prestige.  This last, in which the magician brings
back the disappearing man, reunites the pretty lady with her legs and pulls the rabbit out of the hat, is also the title for director
Christopher Nolan’s much anticipated follow-up to
Batman Begins.  The story, set in England at the turn of the 20th century, pits two
nascent magicians, Alfred and Rupert (played by matinee idols and gay poster boys Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) against one
another.  Michael Caine narrates the picture which tracks the rivalry for fame (and the love of Scarlet Johansson) of the two.  Each
begins under the auspices of a master magician (played by real life conjurer Ricky Jay) but their friendship dissolves when Alfred the
hotheaded, know it all ties the wrong knot on Rupert’s wife (played by lesbian poster girl Piper Perabo) and she drowns in a glass
tank in front of the audience’s eyes.  The rest of the picture consists of one getting the upper hand on the other.  Though the movie
is visually stunning (a red coach racing through the snow, a field of glass electric bulbs lit up at night, the giant electrical
contraptions), is sumptuously designed and well acted, it’s too long and worse, none of the tricks dazzle or delight (as they did in
the recent The Illusionist) and neither magician takes any pleasure in his profession.  Stripped of the visual and acting pyrotechnics
(including an interesting cameo by David Bowie), this sour apple of a movie is revealed as nothing more than a typical straight male
version of one-upmanship a/k/a “who’s got the biggest dick.”  And not even Bale and Jackman playing this tiresome game can
make you care about the outcome for long.
Mommie Dearest and the Miserable Magicians:
Running with Scissors-The Prestige
Expanded Edition of 10-25-06 Windy City Times Knight at the Movies Column
By Richard Knight, Jr.