Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts get in each other's hair in ‘August: Osage County.’
John Wells[1] ’ over-the-top adaptation of Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer-winning play is this season’s cinematic fruitcake: a dense ode to excess.
If you embrace the overkill, you’ll enjoy it. But if extravagance isn’t your thing, move swiftly on to something lighter and more digestible.
Wells does little to expand the play’s stagebound feel, but he does encourage his cast to reach for the rafters. Meryl Streep[2] is given particularly free rein as Violet, the maddening matriarch of the Weston clan. Suffering from cancer and drug addiction, she calls her girls home to Oklahoma after their father (Sam Shepard) disappears.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Julianne Nicholson in ‘August: Osage County’
The eldest, Barb (Julia Roberts[3] ), arrives with her estranged husband (Ewan McGregor) and moody teen daughter (Abigail Breslin), both of whom are equally unhappy about the trip.
Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is the more placid middle daughter, though she resents the assumption that she’ll always put family first and her own needs last. And Karen (Juliette Lewis), the youngest, is constantly trying to curry her fierce mother’s hard-won favor.
Over the next few days, Violet eviscerates each of her relatives in turn. Some, like Karen, accept the anger as their due. Others, particularly the aptly named Barb, embrace the opportunity to fight back.
An ‘Osage County’ sit-down, from left: Julianne Nicholson, Juliette Lewis, Dermot Mulroney, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Cooper, Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Julia Roberts and Margo Martindale
Letts adapted the film himself, and the knife-sharp screenplay, packed tightly with petty put-downs and witty retorts, is terrific. Wells has a fairly firm grasp on the action, but he’s ceded far too much authority to his stars. The movie’s pedigree might suggest arthouse prestige, but the histrionics are so loud it feels more like a 1950s melodrama.
Benedict Cumberbatch is painfully miscast as Violet’s dim nephew, but Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper offset the soapiness with some welcome moderation as her practical sister and brother-in-law.
As for the leads, it seems all too evident that both Streep and Roberts were hoping to reap Oscar glory. And we see, in their unrestrained performances, the dangers of putting the rewards before the role.
From left, Julianne Nicholson, Meryl Streep and Margo Martindale in ‘August: Osage County’
Still, with actors of this caliber, even overemoting can entertain. Having decided to go all-in, Streep is deliriously monstrous, and Roberts makes a suitably furious foil. Nicholson brings some crucial calm, and Lewis finds the bruises that cause her on-screen mom’s nastiness.
It’s easy enough to relate to all three sisters for wanting to get the hell out of Vi’s claustrophobic house. (Kudos to set decorator Nancy Haigh for the lived-in realism.) There’s ample reward in watching so much talent chewing so much scenery.
And to be sure, there won’t be many other opportunities to see Roberts throwing plates around a dinner table while shouting, “Eat the fish, bitch!”
So if you have a taste for the decadent, sit back, settle in and appreciate the insanity of it all.
References
- ^ John Wells (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ Meryl Streep (www.nydailynews.com)
- ^ Julia Roberts (www.nydailynews.com)
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