DVD review: Dysfunctional family trying to cope with life’s pressures
Here is a quick recipe to make a successful drama: you take a dollop of famous actors and you stir in a healthy dose of crumbling family relationships against a backdrop of personal failures.
That basically sums up August: Osage County, that was nominated for two Oscars, including best picture.
The stellar cast includes Meryl Streep (just to raise the drama bar to the Stratosphere), Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard and Ewan McGregor.
Violet Weston (Streep) has cancer and a propensity for pills and alcohol. She has an acid tongue, made worse by her having to deal with chemotherapy. She is, thus, a difficult woman to deal with and her husband has finally had enough.
In the wake of the husband “leaving”, Violet’s dysfunctional family gathers at the matriarch’s house in Osage County, Oklahoma, in the sweltering heat of August.
Naturally, tensions run high from the word go, and slowly secrets begin to tumble out of the closet.
The Weston women, crammed in among the four walls, will be forced to examine themselves and their lives, whether they want to or not.
The claustrophobic atmosphere of conflicts within the Weston homestead, heightened by the typical dinner table scene, is beautifully contrasted against the wide open plains of Oklahoma.
It should be noted that Tracy Letts originally penned the story as a play, and for this reason, originally, you had only one set – the house. Whenever you try to bring an intense stage drama to the big screen you will encounter problems and August: Osage County has a couple of hiccoughs along the way.
Even though the viewer might also at times feel the movie leaves no breathing room, August: Osage County is still one of the more entertaining and wildly dysfunctional comedy-dramas to hit the screen, despite the at times over-the-top performances by Streep.
