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In 1971, the
neatness-obsessed but sharply
observant 6-year-old Augusten finds
himself trapped between his troubled
parents: his mother Deirdre, an
unpublished--not to mention
unstable--confessional poet with
delusions of being hugely famous;
and his father Norman, an alcoholic
math professor who long ago gave up
trying to solve the riddle of his
wife's problems or his son's
precocious behavior. When the
Burroughs' marriage goes to pieces,
Deirdre signs up for therapy with
the eccentric Dr. Finch, a highly
unconventional shrink who takes the
family under his wing. From the
beginning, Augusten is suspicious of
Dr. Finch's peculiarities, but when
Dr. Finch fails to save the
Burroughs' marriage, Augusten's life
takes an even more wrenching turn.
While Deirdre is packed off to a
motel to continue her Valium-aided
therapy, Augusten is sent to live in
the Finch family home--a kind of
Brady-Bunch-gone-bad world where for
some dog kibble is a snack,
sedatives are consumed like candy
and grand prophecies emerge from the
bathroom. Soon Augusten unwittingly
becomes part of the family comprised
of: the shell-shocked Mrs. Finch,
"Bible-dipping" daughter Hope,
disco-rebel daughter Natalie and
Neil Bookman, the disturbed,
35-year-old, "adopted" son who lives
in a shed at the back of the house;
along the way Augusten descends into
a kind of surreal childhood hell.
Yet, he also finds optimism among
the horror, hilarity in the insanity
and even love amid the dilapidated
ruins as he never loses his spirit
or his resilience.
Released February 6,
2007 |