Running With Scissors

"Ms. Bening's precise, pitiless tracing of her character's decline from feisty defiance to pathetic, overmedicated self-delusion gives the film an emotional weight it might not otherwise have..."

"Too much manic energy runs the movie off the rails..."

"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..."

"Murphy, who created the creepy, funny, lunatic "Nip/Tuck," is a master of mordant and macabre camp. But here he loses his teeth, seeming to lack any ironic distance from material that practically begs for it..."

"Well-acted by the superb ensemble cast but there just isn't a likeable character amongst them to care about..."

"Writer/director Ryan Murphy tends towards an overload of kitsch, making this 'true story' feel somewhat affected, but it's still a trip worth taking..."