Running With Scissors

In these days of chicken soup for the soul, therapy is generally held to be a good thing. However, when your mother's psychoanalysis induces a heavy duty prescription drug problem, and prompts her donation/abandonment of you to her therapist and his screwball family, its palliative properties are perhaps in question. Based on Augusten Burroughs' autobiographical account of his extraordinary adolescence as honorary member of the freaky Finch family, this is a trip down a particularly unstable memory lane, affectionate and aggrieved in equal measure. Stylishly shot, with a skilfully chosen soundtrack and intelligently executed script, the film also boasts an impressive ensemble cast, most notably an alternately manic and catatonic Bening as the mother whose antics make Oedipus and Hamlet's maternal experiences look like plain sailing. Sweet, sharp, and nostalgic, with pitch-black humour and a generous dose of kook, Running with Scissors is an eccentric uncle of a movie: unconventional but infinitely loveable. [Lindsay West]