August: Osage County

Now, I have read the play to this film twice, including just last week, so I was super familiar with the material.

The Weston family is highly dysfunctional, making almost every other family seem normal by comparison. Violet (Meryl Streep, always brilliant) is suffering from mouth cancer and a constant pill addiction. Her husband, Beverly (Sam Shepherd), is an alcoholic.

The film begins just like the play, with Beverly hiring Johnna (Misty Upham, wasted in this film), a Native American, to be the housekeeper. Then, he promptly disappears, which brings his whole family together.

Barbara (Julia Roberts) is dealing with a separation from her husband, Bill (Ewan McGregor) and her daughter, Jean (Abigail Breslin) smokes dope. Ivy (Julianne Nicholson, great) has remained at home, but she wants to get out. Youngest daughter, the naïve Karen (Juliette Lewis) doesn’t arrive home until after the body is found and identified by Barbara. She is a real estate agent and is finally engaged to a older guy, Steve (Dermot Mulroney). She has always wanted to get married and have children and is still clinging to that dream, even though she is pushing forty.

Also present is Violet’s sister, Mattie Faye (Margo Martindale), her husband Charlie Aiken (Chris Cooper) and their son, Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch, underused).

Violet belittles her family, pops pills and smokes like a chimney, but wears that wig like it belongs on her. She reveals in front of everyone else, that Barbara and Bill are separated and that a younger woman is involved. Because nothing gets by her. Which is true, she knows everything. It’s scary.

The biggest secret is that Little Charles and Ivy are a couple and in love. Yes, it is wrong but they don’t care. They plan to move away to New York together. But Mattie Faye reveals another secret (to Barbara only), Little Charles is actually Beverly’s child, not her husband’s. Barbara doesn’t want to tell Ivy this because it will kill her and when Violet does tell her, it devastates her. She can’t believe it.

The drama is intense. The family holds a pill raid and Steve hits on Jean while the two of them are getting high, but Karen doesn’t kick him to the curb, instead, she runs off with him, determined to live her dream life in her dream world.  She’s incredibly naïve and clings to a dream that will never happen. Steve has already been married and divorced three times.

Though the plot remains intact from the play and most of the lines are verbatim, a few scenes are altered in a way that they do not need to be. The scene where the sheriff comes to gather a family member to identify the body, Violet, puts on a record and the sound becomes muffled, altering the scene, when it should have been played straight. The play also ends with Violet being comforted in the arms of Johnna but the film ends with an added scene of Barbara, after she too has left the family house, staring at the blank, bleak ground of Oklahoma. It is unnecessary and foolish. Also, the character of Little Charles is not understood well. And that includes the play also. His mother is downright cruel to him, berating him, scolding him at every turn. His supposed father comes to his defense. Is his character supposed to be mentally disabled for with a lower IQ, because that doesn’t come across well, both in the film and in the play. The song playing during the main titles is awkward because it just doesn’t mesh with the heavy drama the film contains. As if this isn’t enough, some of the transitions between scenes which seem effortless in the play, are jarring in the film.

However, the acting is top notch with Streep and Roberts in top form, showing tons of emotions with every stare and line on their faces. Nicholson is also great and needs to be in more films with her breakout performance. Lewis is also great as the naïve youngest daughter. Yes, Streep and Roberts deserve their Oscar nominations. Too bad the rest of the film wasn't as great. Grade: B+