“In Running With Scissors, which is based on Augusten Burroughs‘s best-selling memoir about his crazy, destructive upbringing, Annette Bening portrays Burroughs’s mother, a would-be poet who is addicted to pills that have been prescribed by her psychiatrist. Under the sway of narcotics and convinced that her greatness will be realized only if she is on her own, Deirdre allows the psychiatrist to legally adopt her only child, young Augusten.
“Despite the extreme loopiness of this woman, Bening manages to make her understandable and sympathetic — she is a fascinating mess, a strangely driven and complicated diva without any particular talent. ‘Deirdre’s aspirations are true for all of us,’ Bening explained. ‘Sometimes the aspiration is just as passionate as the result. The dream can overtake everything.'” — from Lynn Hirschberg‘s profile of Bening in Sunday’s N.Y. Times (10.8).
