p>PLOT: Memoir of a childhood spent with deranged adults based on Augusten Burroughs' best-selling book) has a great cast and some wonderful performances, all of which adds up to nothing thanks to clumsy filmmaking.

Augusten Burroughs wrote Running With Scissors, a bestselling memoir about his hugely dysfunctional childhood.

He managed to weave humour and empathy into stories about his alcoholic father and the unstable mother who eventually gave Burroughs over to her psychiatrist to be raised.

Burroughs' time with the therapist's family involved prescription drugs, other people's breakdowns and his own affair, age 13, with the doctor's adult son.

The movie version of Running With Scissors is a huge disappointment. This is a truly astounding waste of time, money and talent.

Joseph Cross stars as Burroughs, a child we meet as he does his beloved mother's hair for her. It's the 1970s. Mom (Annette Bening) fancies herself an artist and fights a lot with Augusten's dad (Alec Baldwin). Dad is usually drunk. After a lot of yelling and drama, mom gives Augusten to her shrink, Dr. Finch, (Brian Cox) to be raised while she goes off to raise her consciousness.

At Dr. Finch's house, all is chaos. His wife (Jill Clayburgh) eats dog kibble. Dr. Finch often tells one daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) that she is his favourite while his other daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) is a rebel. Then there's Bookman (Joseph Fiennes), the adult psychopath raised by the Finches who becomes Augusten's lover. People study their own bowel movements, take drugs, get life clues from bible dipping and hold cat funerals.

Later, Mom comes out as a lesbian. She takes lots of drugs and sinks deeper into depression and narcissism and paranoia. Dad never rescues his gay son Augusten.

Augusten goes to New York to get a life of his own.

You so won't care.

Running With Scissors is the sort of film that has period furniture and visual gags where the writing should be -- and intrusive music used like a blunt object to underline the action. It's just brutal.

The storytelling is the problem. There isn't any. There are bits and scenes cobbled together, but nothing that adds up. Excellent performances from several players, particularly Bening and Cox, are thus buried in this overlong sitcom.

The British excel at presented eccentricity on film, and the Americans are so poor at it: Discuss.

BOTTOM LINE: Get the book.

(This film is rated 14-A)
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