20141111: Drama Review--August Osage County

August: Osage County

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 121 minutes, drama.
2. IMDB: 7.3/10.0 from 47,908 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 25 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 64% on the meter; 66% liked it from 37,309 audience ratings.
4. I saw the film on Showtime.
5. Directed by: John Wells.
6. Starring: Meryl Streep as Violet Weston, Julia Roberts as Barbara Weston, Ewan McGregor as Bill Fordham, Margo Martindale as Mattie Fae Aiken, Chris Cooper as Charlie Aiken, Sam Shepard as Beverly Weston, Dermot Mulroney as Steve Huberbrecht, Abigail Breslin as Jean Fordham, Julianne Nicholson as Ivy Weston, Juliette Lewis as Karen Weston, Benedict Cumberbatch as Little Charles Aiken, Misty Upham as Johnna Monevata.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Violet Weston's husband Beverly walks off one day, and turns up dead later.  Violet gathers the family.  Daughter Ivy was already there helping out.  Her sister Mattie Fae and husband Charlie show up early, as do daughter Barbara with her husband Bill.  Jean is the daughter of Barbara and Bill.  Violet's daughter Karen (with fiance Steve) get there before the funeral.  Showing up after the funeral is Little Charlie, son of Charlie and Mattie Fae.


2. So, let the drama begin.  Violet is a long time abuser of prescription medicine.  Barbara and Bill have separated; Jean is seemingly out of it.  Charlie and Mattie Fae can hardly stand each other.  Little Charlie is a foulup.  Karen is concerned about her career and her upcoming honeymoon, and not so much about her family.  Her fiance, Steve, is a major pothead who tries to tempt Jean to start using.


3. The film is set during a hot August in Oklahoma, where beef cattle are a cash crop.  Jean is a vegetarian.  That's a subject of derision at the dinner table.  Violet is high, and she rags on her dead husband, then the fiance Steve, then on 'cowboys and Indians,' then on to Barbara and Bill's separation.  The heart of Violet's complaining is her comparison of the tough childhood that she and Mattie Fae had versus the upbringing that her daughters enjoyed.  Barbara, in turn, is bloody sick of Violet's drug addiction.


4. To add to all the drama, Violet has cancer of the mouth.  Barbara decides to take control of her mother's life.  Lots of unfortunate truths receive more light than they have seen in a while.


5. Will the family dysfunction continue, or get worse?


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Tense family dinner after a funeral forces secrets out.
2. Eight of ten


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 No problems.


2. Sound: 8/10 I could hear the dialog, except for Cumberbatch's mumbling.  The sound track did not add much.


3. Acting: 8/10 Most of the performances were quite good: Chris Cooper, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Juliann Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Sam Shepard, Ewan MacGregor.  However, several of the characters had little screen time and few lines.  The presence of Cumberbatch in an otherwise good film was curious at best.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 There is nothing new here, and little interesting, in terms of story and plot development.  A dysfunctional family has a chewy weekend after a funeral.  Streep and Roberts get some acting exercise here, but the rest of the cast is underused to the point of being wasted.