Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs' riveting and unsettling memoir of a strange and disturbing childhood, was never supposed to be a hit. Both the author and his publisher felt it would draw some attention, but neither were prepared for its success - more than a million copies sold.

Burroughs' tale is an incredible one of being raised by a barely functional mother, who, when the going got rough, sent him at age 12 to live with her just-as-crazy psychiatrist and his outrageously eccentric family, where his life careened from one disturbing chapter to the next. Filled with humorous and shocking encounters with mental illness, sex, prescription drugs and counter-culture therapy, it was inevitable that Hollywood eventually would come calling.

But Burroughs, who through the book had unearthed a childhood he spent his life running away from, was very protective of the memoir. He had no intention of selling the rights.

"I absolutely did not want to give it away to Hollywood," Burroughs said. "It's the sort of book that could easily be made into a very bad movie."

Burroughs hadn't yet met Ryan Murphy (Nip/Tuck), a determined writer-director who was obsessed with the book. Not only did he see parallels in his own childhood but he had a vision for the movie adaptation that he felt Burroughs would like.

"The most important thing is that it's a story of survival," Murphy, 40, said, during a recent stop in Chicago. "It's a story about childhood, but also about the quest for family and identity and forgiveness that allows Augusten to move forward with hope."

Burroughs agreed to a meeting - but only to explain to Murphy why a movie would never happen.

"It was a very odd meeting," Burroughs recalled. "There were manyimilarities in how we responded to our mothers. Almost immediately my gut instinct was to give him the rights. Somehow I trusted that he knew how to make it into a great film."

Still, Burroughs wasn't quite sure what he had gotten himself into. But he did know that at some point he'd just have to let it go and hope for the best. Directing his first feature film, Murphy surprised him at every turn.

"From the start, Ryan emphasized that it was not just a movie, but my life," Burroughs, 41, said. "He reeled me back in and kept me involved through the entire process. It was a wonderful experience, almost too easy."

The result of that meeting is the $12 million film Running with Scissors, which opens Friday at area theaters. The cast includes Joseph Cross as a young Augusten; Annette Bening as Deirdre Burroughs, his mother; Brian Cox as her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch; Jill Clayburgh as Finch's wife, Agnes; Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood as the Finch's daughters; and Joseph Fiennes as Neil Bookman, Augusten's first love.

Murphy readily admits that writing the screenplay was the movie's greatest challenge; everything after that simply fell into place. Murphy and Burroughs met frequently over a nine-month period in which the writer-director questioned the memoirist in depth about his life.

"Those talks weren't easy," Burroughs admits. "But I think they did help add a richness to the screenplay. I think the film is very emotionally honest."

Added Murphy: "The book is written by a 35-year-old looking back with some degree of cynicism and I really felt it had to be a movie about a child looking up at his mother, adoring her. I had to struggle and search to find those moments."

In the midst of all this family turmoil, Burroughs amazingly does his growing up. He breaks away from his psychotic mother; comes out as gay; and finally leaves the doctor's house. The movie, which promises visceral responses at nearly every turn, contains the kind of scenes that are often harrowing but which are also plainly funny and rich with child's-eye details of adults who have gone off the deep end.

For both Burroughs and Murphy, humor played a major role in humanizing the cast of characters, who when you get right down to it aren't very likable. Murphy wanted to make sure that none of them, no matter their failings, would come across as villains.

"It's a tough, disturbing, difficult story about child abuse, child abandonment and drug abuse," Murphy said. "But even though these people do terrible things, you can never hate them because you see them struggling. They're all victims either of drugs or bad psychiatry or of their own aspirations and illusions."

Burroughs' mother, Deirdre, was a diva from Georgia who had aspirations as a poet in the vein of Anne Sexton. He thinks Bening captured every side of her. Hollywood often plays mental illness with histrionics and drama, but Burroughs said it's really "all in the eyes."

"One day I looked into my mother's eyes and didn't recognize her anymore," Burroughs said. "And Annette perfectly captures that emptiness."

Murphy interviewed and auditioned nearly 400 actors before casting Cross in the role of Augusten. "For his age, Joe was very poised and had a very strong sense of self," Murphy recalled. "And he got the comedy of it in a way he probably doesn't even understand. I knew he would be a great person to take the audience through this world of craziness."

Cross, a sweet-looking 20-year-old, was ready for the challenge in his first leading role. (Cross also can be seen in Clint Eastwood's upcoming Flags of Our Fathers.) Emotionally he ages from 12 to 17, and along the way must fluently grasp feelings of abandonment, loneliness and isolation. It's the sort of role most actors don't take on until much later in life.

"The role evokes all sorts of emotions," Cross said. "To have that challenge at my age is pretty amazing. It's been interesting to go to places I hadn't been before."

In the end, Burroughs got "an honest reflection" of his experience.

"During those years, I never knew what to expect in my life from one moment to the next. But I never lost my hope," he said. "I wanted the movie to have the same spirit of the book so the audience would get a feel for what it was like to go through this childhood filled with laughter, shock and confusion but never to lose that feeling of hope and optimism."