The maxim that truth is stranger than fiction is carried to the nth degree in this adaptation of Augusten Burroughs' best-selling memoir of his dysfunctional childhood and adolescence. [...] while the story might have been believable on the written page, on film "Running With Scissors" plays like a surreal black comedy that seems all too redolent of the cinematic excesses of the 1970s, the period in which it is set. While name recognition and a stellar cast might prove a draw, the sheer strangeness of the material is likely to be off-putting for mainstream audiences.

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