I dunno, Ainge, I kinda like it...

Maybe I'm just having an off day, maybe I haven't seen enough of these kinds of pics.  I burned a DVD of The Squid and the Whale (back in the day), which one of the hipster reviewers compared this to.  But I did think of Wes Anderson and rigid stylization at times, if only because Gwyneth Paltrow was in that Tenenbaums debacle.  That's right, I called it that.  Nice pink DVD box, though!  Bottom line: if Annette Bening has ever given a bad performance in a movie, I just plain don't want to know about it.
But seeing as how I've become a flaming name-ist, I'm all over the fact that autobiographer Augusten Burroughs was born CHRISTOPHER ROBISON.  Richter!  Christopher Richter Robison!  Well, I'm obviously just jealous, because I'm not gifted.  As with Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum, some people learn in this life that if you want to make it onto the world stage, more often than not, only a different name will do.  And just like Ayn Rand was 'born,' Augusten knew that he'd have to take a more colorful nom de plume if he was to survive another New York winter.  The next step of course is alter ego.  Stephen King has his Richard Bachman, Garth Brooks has his Chris Gaines, only time will tell if Augusten has THAT much talent to give the world.  So far, nothing.
But I will say that the film itself, well, the ads I've seen for it didn't do it justice for me.  They used all the scenes of Alec Baldwin talking in those little ads.  Quite different from the movie as a whole.  Generally, the acting is above par by everyone.  I guess Brian Cox steals the show as the opposite of Mumford; he's hiding the wrong things about himself.  When you get right down to it, all films are comedies these days, but for some reason I found it effective as a family drama.  Thank God for Cox and Paltrow who bring a few laughs to the proceedings.  I also finally see why Evan Rachel Wood is a star, utterly wasted in Whatever Works.
...okay, I'm back.  Had to brush and floss.  Somehow I feel like I've spent too much time on this one, so let me just wrap up by saying that it seems like the dude's parents fell apart because Mom was a lesbian, but she realized it too late.  Apparently, according to the end credits, reconciliation with Dad was easier.  And maybe I'm just a cynical old fart now, but when Augusten was on the phone telling Natalie that he was scared about moving to New York, I couldn't help but think to myself, dude, after what you've been through in this movie so far, New York will be a piece of cake.

Good double bill with: Albert Brooks' Mother... the film, not the parent

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan