RUNNING WITH SCISSORS – ryan murphy – 3.1 / 10

I guess the book this film is based on must be pretty good.  How else to explain how all of these demonstrably talented people got snookered into being in this film.  It’s no secret that I love Ryan Murphy’s series Nip / Tuck (the first couple seasons anyway).  And his direction and writing on that show are often exemplary.  The direction of this film (his feature debut) is workmanlike but serviceable, mostly getting out of the way of the ‘hilarious’ and ‘heartbreaking’ events of the film.  It’s the writing that fails him.  In the special features on the DVD, Augusten Burroughs, the author of the ‘personal memoir’ upon which the film is based talks at length about Murphy’s determination in pursuing this project.  That leads me to believe that Murphy feels some sort of personal connection to the weirdness on display here.  And maybe that’s why he misses the mark by so much.  Maybe he thought that other people would connect to the story as he did.  Maybe he just took for granted that the story was compelling on its own.