Review of August: Osage County (2013) by Kate H — 05 Mar 2014

You can tell that this is play right away. Not a good thing or a bad but this amount of characters and their issues and the discussions that go about just scream theatre.

When the film first starts everything seems very familiar. There's one of some type of person in this family in every family, I'd imagine. As things progressively get more out of control and revelations come out you realise 'okay, this is no longer that familiar.' At least, thankfully, not in my case.

There's a lot of fine acting in here as an ensemble. Meryl Streep I think is just having a blast losing it for two hours while everyone else holds their own in the face of the cyclone that is Violet. I won't go so far as to call the film touching - the only parts that I can say were touching were Chris Cooper's defense of his son and said son's (Benedict Cumberbatch) understated wall as that family member that is the perpetual screw up through seeming stupidity or obliviousness rather than self destructive or malicious. Otherwise I'd have to agree with Ivy's assessment of the family - that there's not really much here aside from genetics and it's all just really random.