You’d think that Ryan Murphy, creator of plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck, might know a little about the potentially disastrous effects of remodelling things that their owners hold dear. Apparently not — his adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’ affecting and riotously amusing childhood memoir (think Adrian Mole scripted by the Marquis de Sade) proves about as appealing as major surgery.
The director treats the author’s delicious humour like a tumour, removing every trace, which leads to a one-note tale shorn of ebullience — saved from one-star ignominy only by Annette Bening’s stand-out monster of a mother-figure.