Running with Scissors
User Score
5.9 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 59 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 59
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 59
  3. Negative: 16 out of 59

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  1. ScottS
    Dec 4, 2008
    2
    Burroughs is one sparky author, and deserved much better. I forced myself to consume this unappetising mess in four sittings. When Gwyneth Paltrow's performance and the set design are the two best things going for a film, you know you are onto a loser. The male lead was absolutely insipid.
  2. JohnY.
    Oct 17, 2006
    4
    A painful experience, akin to being stuck in a box with a group of annoying loonies.
  3. JackC.
    Oct 28, 2006
    1
    Wallows in its own pretension and tries to make a story of cardboard cutouts into meaningful art. Emotional complexity and directorial merit are left as afterthoughts: instead, this movie shows the viewer a cadre of crazies and rests on its laurels contentedly, bringing neither style nor substance to the table. Burroughs must feel downright insulted at this perversion of his memoir. Some saving graces... Evan Rachel Wood gave a performance that managed to have more than one dimension (and was smoking hot while she was doing it). Other than that, I can't see where the art is. People in the theatre were laughing at this serious movie all throughout its too-long running time, and I can't blame them. Absurdism for the sake of absurdism has no artistic value... and that's exactly the calling card of Running with Scissors.… Expand
  4. SteveS.
    Feb 26, 2007
    0
    Terrible, over-rated movie like American Beauty. Directionless, pointless, with the therapist being the worst of all roles.
  5. RyanF.
    Jun 2, 2007
    4
    While the movie is quite hilarious.....as to how jacked up the characters are, I think the movie hardly follows the contents of the book as well as it should. The director should have made it more to pertaining with the Novel than his own ideas. It is a pretty big disaster for a film but.....all in all, the craziness of it just makes me laugh.
  6. DavidS
    Oct 17, 2006
    2
    Director Ryan Murphy made a tragic mistake of just trying to get Bening an Oscar then developing the main characters essential role... typical with a very affected new coming Hollywood director...
  7. JoeC
    Oct 28, 2006
    1
    I had decent expectations for the movie based on the book and cast, but it turned out to be uninteresting and overly strange. I wasn't moved let alone entertained.

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
52 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 32 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 32
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 32
  3. Negative: 3 out of 32
  1. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    38
    For the most part, Murphy is pitching somewhere between "American Beauty" and "The Royal Tenenbaums"; indeed, the characters Bening and Gwyneth Paltrow play in Scissors are, in a sense, inversions of their roles in Beauty and Tenenbaums, respectively.
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  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Frank Scheck
    60
    Too outlandish to be fully convincing, this adaptation of the best-selling memoir sacrifices subtlety for broad laughs.
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  3. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    50
    Writer-director Ryan Murphy strives mightily to capture the bracing hilarity, pathos and surreal incident of Burroughs' bestselling memoir, but this rudderless adaptation never gets a firm grip on the author's deadpan tone or episodic narrative style.
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