Review of August: Osage County (2013) by Patrick S — 09 Oct 2014

You might not like it, but you know it's good for you. August: Osage County is not a fun film but it leaves you thinking, vaguely frustrated yet hugely impressed.

A simple story is delivered by an incredible cast, the sheer quality of the acting bringing an intensity that borders on the frightening. Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts are superb, as always, and thoroughly deserved their Oscar nominations - especially for the sheer authenticity of their portrayal of a dysfunctional, adversarial mother-daughter relationship.

In this film, it's the women who rule. I was mildly disturbed by the characterisation of every male as weak-willed and lacking in integrity, but that's also what makes the movie work so well because it enables the female characters to produce their respective ferociously independent degrees of power.

Least convincing in that regard is Karen (Juliette Lewis), who you know is always going to be chasing her wide boy fiancé despite his obvious fate to always remain a prick. Julianne Nicholson gives an understated performance as Ivy and is perhaps the most likeable of the three sisters - you really feel for her as she drives away in tears after learning that her (rather incestuous) relationship with Little Charles is actually illegal, even in Oklahoma. Roberts' Barbara is common sense on legs, but she's mean too. She got that from her mother, Violet (Streep), but at least *her* cheating husband didn't kill himself.

Male weakness is a prominent theme and the men who portray it do it very well indeed. British actors Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch hold up their end of the bargain remarkably well, delivering mid-western twangs that will have had the natives guessing. Chris Cooper also does a fine job in playing the patriarch with no power, making one of the few firm male statements in the film when he tells off his wife, Mattie Fae, for being mean to their son, Little Charles (little does Big Charles know how little he contributed to the making of Little Charles).

Yes, the whole thing makes you think, not necessarily in a good way. Eat your fish, bitch!