Running with Scissors is a 2006 American comedy-drama film based on Augusten Burroughs' 2002 memoir of the same name, written and directed by Ryan Murphy, and starring Joseph Cross, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh, and Gwyneth Paltrow with supporting roles filled by Kristin Chenoweth and Gabrielle Union, among others. Based on Augusten Burroughs' memoir of the same name, the film is a semi-autobiographical account of Burroughs' childhood. His mother, Deidre (Annette Bening), perceiving an ill-fated upbringing, places him under the care of her unorthodox psychiatrist, Dr. Finch (Brian Cox), the eccentric patriarch of an oddball family. At the age of 12, Burroughs (Joseph Cross) finds himself in Victorian squalor living an unconventional youth among the doctor's family, and is subject to irregular visits by his increasingly unsound mother. At one point, Burroughs befriends Neil Bookman (Joseph Fiennes), Finch's adopted ! 33-year-old son, and the two enter an erratic sexual relationship. The story is of a childhood in which the boundary between reality and fantasy is ignored and finally broken; as, ultimately, is the irreplaceable bond between mother and son.