'August: Osage County' A Review

August: Osage County is a dysfunctional family drama based on the Tracy Letts Pulitzer Prize winning play. Set in the Oklahoma plains the film opens with a monologue from patriarch Beverly Weston, played by a wonderful Sam Shepard, unfortunately this is the only time he is on screen. Beverly disappears and the Weston clan marshals around pill popping matriarch Violet(Meryl Streep) and old wounds are reopened.

The talented but uneven ensemble struggles to get the film off the ground and the result is interesting but inconsistent. The main fault lies in the two leads Streep and Julia Roberts as oldest daughter Barbara. They both give incredibly loud over-the-top performances better suited for the stage. They both oscillate from caricature to sincerity so quickly nothing is believable. They also lay the Oklahoma accent on thick in the first half of the film and then it virtually disappears. The remaining ensemble ranges from mediocre(Ewan McGregor, Abagail Breslin, Dermot Mulroney) to great(Chris Cooper, Julieanne Nicholson, Margo Martindale) but the supporting performances fail to sew up the erratic Streep and Roberts. Nicholson especially hits the perfect balance of reserve and emotion the film calls for but she is overshadowed by all the shouting and drug addled behavior.

The story, billed as a black comedy, is itself problematic. There is nothing terribly redeeming, endearing, or sympathetic about many of the characters. A story about a fractured family coming together and being ugly to each other isn't very interesting. There is a lot of subtlety and layers that could be cultivated from the script but this version of August: Osage County is all bluster and no heart. A sappy and melodramatic score just hightens the tonal irregularities.

A film with a lot of potential, some amazing moments, fails to coalesce.

Rent It.