August: Osage County

Back in the summer, August: Osage County was one of my most anticipated movies of the second half of 2013.  With an extremely deep cast, and being based on a Pulitzer Prize winning play (the screenplay was written by Tracy Letts, the writer of the play) it really felt like it had a great deal of potential to really provide a deep and interesting story.  The movie is about a very dysfunctional family, led by the pill-popping, cruel matriarch Violet (Meryl Streep) who is left alone when her husband disappears, an event that leads to her daughters, Barbara (Julia Roberts), Karen (Juliette Lewis), and Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) to come around her and support her.  Well, ‘support’ may not be the best word to use, because, as I had mentioned, it is a very dysfunctional family and their idea of ‘support’ may be different that yours or mine.

Holding the film together are some wonderful acting performances, especially by Streep and Roberts who play characters who are far from likable.  Violet is a very detestable person, and Streep seems to care not for her own personal vanity and creating relatable characters, as she just seems to allow herself to perfectly ruin any moment she may create where she becomes relatable.  Her performance in this film is another solid argument as to why she should be considered the best actor alive today.  The character of Barbara is one of the strongest of the siblings, and perhaps the one who has been most affected by the parenting flaws of Violet.  Roberts creates her own character, but at the same time it is one that mirrors, perhaps more subtly at times, Violet.

It would be hard not to as well mention the supporting cast, which all do so well to bring their characters to life.  One that stood out the most to me was Charles (Chris Cooper) who was married to Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale), and the de facto patriarch of the family.  He is able to become the keel of the ship that is the family and add an element of humanity and moral uprightness that is missing from so many people, and he does it in a warm, loving, and fatherly way.  Also standing out was Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Little Charles (the son of Charles and Mattie Fae) who is a very sensitive dullard.  We have seen Cumberbatch play some very cerebral and powerful characters this year (such as Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness, and the voice of Smaug in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug), and it is very interesting to see him in such a defenseless and powerless role, showing further his acting talents and what his young career has in store.

While the film was stoutly cast and showed the effects of family behaviour, it did end up suffering from some core issues that managed to hold its potential at bay.  The film had some great moments of comedy in it, and others of very sobering reality, however the lines and transitions between these often felt blurred.  While the story worked very well as a play, it is possible that the movie needed a different screenwriter to better adapt it to the different medium.  As I mentioned the blurry transitions, this is what kept the film from truly hitting home for me.  It seemed that the change in gears and pace could happen very quickly and abruptly, causing me to never settling into one mode for long enough before the next shift happened.

The execution and delivery really did appear to be the biggest hurdle for the movie, for while the story looked to show the emotional revelations, development, and even growth within the family, it continually seemed to fall just short of achieving the desired emotional impact.  It really was difficult to feel what I was supposed to during this film, and that became frustrating because I truly had a desire to be invested in the characters, but was never able to find that the moments where they were to be sympathetic ever fully resonated.

The movie lands in that grey area where there are a lot of reasons to recommend it, such as the casting, the acting, moments of drama and comedy, but there are equally enough reasons to not recommend it.  Being a person who relies mostly on logic and reasoning, I find that emotion is what is guiding my rating of this movie, or more accurately, the lack of emotion.  The film should have stirred up a great range of feelings within me, and ultimately seemed unable to achieve that, mostly due to a jagged progression.  As well, the characters could have stood to be more relatable for moments to allow us into their world of pain and emotionally stunted growth.

Rating – 2.5 out of 4 stars