The Making and Breaking of Relationships in Running with Scissors - Essay Example

?Full The Making and Breaking of Relationships Running with Scissors is a story of an extremely dysfunctional family where the parents do not give each other the chance to communicate in order to make their relationship and family better. The husband is very busy with his work while the wife struggles to have her poems published. They fought over trivial matters even in front of their child is caught in between the parents and somehow becomes burdened with their situation. As a result, the mother consults her psychiatrist who was unfortunately was an opportunistic and manipulative person. The shrink convinces the mother that she is in danger from her husband who wants to kill her and therefore, must leave him before she gets killed. The mother and son’s living arrangements were decided by the psychologist, the mother was to stay at a motel while her son stays with her shrink’s family. The doctor manipulated the main characters in the story for them to be live lasciviously and become dependent on drugs, limiting their developments in life. The mother had an illicit affair with a female friend while the son had sexual relationship with a male patient of the doctor. After so many struggles, the mother finally had her works published and was starting to stand strong however, she found out that she was deceived by her own doctor with the money her husband sent to support their son. Consequently, she stayed away from her shrink while his son went away from her to start his own new life. The aforementioned film exemplifies the making and breaking of a mother and son relationship which this paper will further discuss, expounding on how relationships are developed and destroyed. Relationships are very important because as social beings, people cannot avoid building relationships. More importantly, family relationships are valuable to every human being because it is in the family that basic principles about relationships are established. In the film Running with Scissors, the relationship of the mother and son was initially good. The mother was adored by her son because she has shown how much she cared for the child and the mother in turn loved and cared for her son. However, the mother and son did not quite have a good relationship with the workaholic husband and father although this seemed to draw the two together as confidants and allies. The boy grew to empathize with his mother as the abused partner so that he did little things such as preparing tea to serve her mother and show his fidelity and care. The mother influenced her son even further by sharing with him her every dream and involving him with her plans (Murphy). The relationship of the mother and son is obviously good in the beginning because the mother worked hard to maintain good communication between them despite their circumstance with the father. The mother shared her career plans with her son which might have been good for his learning. The son in turn looked up to her mother. The two became encouragements to each other even during tough times. As a result, they formed a strong bond. When the mother and father fought in front of the boy and the father was knocked off and fainted as he attacked his wife, the father was never seen as a victim in the eyes of the son. Instead, of getting shocked with how the mother spoke against her husband, the son instead feared for his mother’s life than his father (Murphy). This only shows how he supported and protected his mother as a result of the relationship that they formed. On the contrary, the relationship of the mother and child could also be considered not very normal, at least on the part of the child. The mother sharing her problems with her son at a very tender age somehow made the child feel the strain that she was going through. Therefore, the son did not have a normal childhood. Instead, he seemed to have grown extremely emotionally attached to the woman so that he imitated her in most of her actions, including how she dreamily delivered her speeches. As the mother and father’s relationship became worse, they fought even in front of the child. This was very traumatic for the child. The parents, as mature individuals, did not think about their child who was disturbed by their fight. As the son said, he was also a part of the house (Murphy) however; he seemed to have been non-existent when the manipulative and depressed mother threw her frustrations on her equally struggling husband. This resulted to a divorce which greatly changed the lives of the mother and child. The mother became obsessed with her psychiatrist’s advices, ultimately destroying herself and her son but never seeing what she was doing to them. Indeed, the mother had her own issues which might have been difficult for her. However, she let herself be deceived by trusting too much on her psychiatrist who happened to be an opportunist. She unquestioningly accepted the shrink’s drugs which altered her thinking. Worse, she made the psychiatrist decide for her and her son when she was supposed to be the one doing so. The mother did not stand strong in performing her duties to herself and her son and this made the shrink abuse and manipulate them. When the woman gave up her son for adoption, she never even suspected any of the ulterior motives of the shrink. As a result, her son became involved with a homosexual who took advantage of his troubled mind. What was heartbreaking with the mother and son’s relationship was that, the mother knew exactly what was happening to her son but she did not even make any effort to stop the abuse her son is being exposed to. Instead, she seemed to have encouraged him with his reckless and destructive lifestyle. For instance, when the son smoked in front of his mother, the woman rebuked her not to smoke her cigarette because he had his own pack. Instead of telling his son to avoid the vice that might have affected her marriage and her other relationships, she even provided him with his own cigarettes. In addition, when her son asked for five dollars so she could cut classes and go to the movies, she freely gave him his request (Murphy) instead of speaking with him and guiding him to take the right paths despite their struggles. This is indeed bad parenting and it has caused a good relationship to finally end as the mother and son situation seemed to be far from being remedied. From the movie mentioned above, one can see that a good relationship between a mother and son can be formed through love and communication. The main characters in the film showed this possibility in their earlier relationship. However, due to life’s difficulties, the two broke away from each other. Times might have been troublesome for both mother and son however, it should have not been a reason for the woman not to stand strong and do her responsibilities. As a result, the two lives were destroyed together with their relationship which ended in their separation. Reference Running with Scissors. Dir. Ryan Murphy. Perf. Joseph Cross, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Alec Baldwin, Jill Clayburgh, and Gwyneth Paltrow. TriStar Pictures, 2006. DVD Read More