67 out of 67 people found the following review helpful:

Dark comedy minus the comedy!!

balearicbayes from , 19th December, 2007

This film had the potential to be on par with the likes of The Royal Tenenbaums and numerous other movies dealing with dysfunctional families, but it never quite reaches that level. There is just too much tragedy in the lead characters life for even the slightly funny bits to raise a smile. I found myself more concerned with the fact that this film is based on Augusten Burroughs' personal memoirs, and alarmed that all these events actually happened to this poor kid!!! There is a couple of redeeming qualities though- one is Annette Bening who acts her socks off as the crazy mum, and the second is that Augusten survived his traumatising childhood to become a success!!! Think I might go back and read the book instead!!!

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30 out of 36 people found the following review helpful:

Dysfunctional families

A Customer from London, England, 31st December, 2006

The opening scene is great and the first fifteen minutes or so are promising, but after that the film slumps into dreary gloom and doom from which it never emerges. The film is based on the memoirs of the American author Augusten Burroughs in which he charts his childhood and adolescence as the only son of dysfunctional parents. His father is an alcoholic, his untalented mother yearns to be a famous poet and recites her work to her adoring son. When her psychotic episodes begin to take over, her husband walks out and the young Augusten is sent to live with the equally dysfunctional family of his mother’s dubious psychiatrist who likes to get his hands on his patients’ trust funds and dishes out tranquillizers as if they were biscuits. I hoped for some denouement in which the psychiatrist is proved to have been responsible for everyone’s mental deterioration and gets his just deserts, but no. There is no shape to the story, in fact there’s very little story, and no sign of any hope for Augusten’s future. Do we care? Well, there were one or two moments when I felt sorry for him but that’s all. I certainly couldn’t empathise with any of the other characters, with perhaps the exception of Augusten’s father. It is a very depressing film that goes nowhere.

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7 out of 8 people found the following review helpful:

Irritating

breatheasier from from BRIGHTON, 22nd July, 2007

I rented this film after friends had commented on how great the book was... i wish I'd read the book instead. Augusten Burroughs is a teenager raised by unstable parents, who's eventual split leads his mother to hand him over to her psychiatrist, a man who's family is as questionable as his medical practices. The film isn'y entirely bad but I did get very bored about three quarters of the way through. I found most of the characters very irritating particularly Dierdre, the mother (played superbly by Annette Benning) who I had absolutely no sympathy for at all. I wouldn't go as far as saying avoid this film but there are better films out there to rent first.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review helpful:

Lovely Film

A Customer from Leeds, 30th August, 2007

Terrific acting by the entire cast, great editing especially when cutting between characters while each shows their individual way of dealing with rage. It has a gentle humour, not a comedy, but not a depressing examination of mental illness or grim childhood either. If you enjoyed Breakfast on Pluto, you'll enjoy this, both have a very similar directorial style and lead character.

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Not funny

A Customer from gateshead, 10th March, 2010

Absolutely ridiculous film. Could have been made much better, no humour, just rubbish. Expected a lot more from this film.

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running with scissors

A Customer from somerset, 14th February, 2010

amazing the author turned out so well in real life

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well I love it

A Customer from Kent, 6th November, 2009

Despite numerous negative critique, I thoroughly enjoyed this memorable film for it's symbolic colour imagery, juxtaposing soundtrack, quirks, and very likeable characters. They progressively became quite affecting. True, it had the potential to become something greater, and perhaps was misleading with rather lavish representations of dysfunctional families. But, it's 'dark comedy' and 70's soundtrack for me actually heightened poignancy in the film, I felt these tools were metaphoric of the masks the characters were wearing. Did the plot get lost or was it because the characters were so lost? Moments in the film were brilliant, Annette Bening placed this film on another level, playing the deluded and lost mother (of the main character Augustus Burroughs) superbly! Agyness Finch (Jill Clayburgh) for me was most affecting (aided by great cinematographic moments), affirming that this film is really about dreams, accepting reality, and finding life. And it's all based on the true memoirs (sort of)... I loved it. 'All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' - Tolstoy

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Scissor Happy

ImageGirl from , 16th October, 2009

I read the book a couple of years before the film came out and thought what a great film it would make due to the characters and as it was based on fact you just couldnt make this stuff up!!! On the whole Ryan Murphy did a good job with this, it couldnt have been easy working with such dark characters and be able to build in a bit of humour . The description of the house in the book conjours up a feast for the imagination and the recreation of the house in the film is spot on. I love it when film makers and directors have the courage to tackle this sort of material. I wonder what the Coen Brothers would have done with this????

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