Review of August: Osage County (2013) by Kenneth H — 17 Feb 2014

August: Osage County does have several things going for it: great cinematography, wonderful scenes of the Osage County landscape (which I took upon myself to personally visit prior to watching this movie in Bartlesville, the closest I could get to the movie's rural setting), an all-star cast that brings the characters and their stories to life.

The problem with this movie are the stories themselves - that's to say, the entire plot, which is little more than a collection of interconnecting dramas that lace together to form a web of shitshows. The plot is driven mostly by who's sleeping with whom or who's doing what drugs, and yes it's an awful lot of juicy gossip crammed into two hours, but like any juicy gossip, it's very interesting but very intellectually and artistically unsatisfying. This movie runs on what's essentially the cinematic equivalent of empty calories. And after awhile, all the constant screaming, histrionics, and melodrama gets really tiring.

I did like the ending where, one by one, everyone leaves until Violet is left only with her caregiver. I think it was a nice closing comment on how Violet's behavior had destroyed her closest relationships.

As for the acting, Meryl Streep is good, but I don't know if I can say it was the best performance of her career (and I've seen a lot of her performances because I took a Meryl Streep class in the Theater Department at UCSD), and I wasn't blown away. If anything, I was more impressed with Julia Roberts. Her character Barbara is a hard-nosed, no-nonsense dominator who looked like she was constantly struggling to maintain control over herself, but all her inner pent-up rage and bitterness were threatening to explode out of her skin at any moment (until they finally did). I also think the two actresses should've switched Oscar categories so that Roberts would be in the Lead Actress category and Streep in the Supporting Actress category, as the movie is arguably more Barbara's story.