A dour and dispiriting deconstruction of American matriarchy, August: Osage County charts a few days in the lives of a dilapidated and dysfunctional family, struggling to reconcile the past and the present in the Oklahoma heat and reeling from recent tragedy.
August: Osage County (2013) Drama; USA; dir: John Wells; writer: Tracy Letts (screenplay) (play)
The scribe behind two of William Friedkin’s most recent films – Bug (2006) and the devilishly jet-black crime thriller Killer Joe, Tracy Letts won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his original play August: Osage County, itself named after a Howard Starks poem. Following a successful run on Broadway, the film was adapted by Letts and directed by John Wells. Letts’ work with Friedkin over the past twenty years (Friedkin directed both stage versions of Killer Joe and August: Osage County) would seem to have added an extra credibility to his Hollywood forays; he seems certain to become a regular in the writing credits of mainstream American cinema as well as the hallowed halls of Washington DC in Homeland.
August: Osage County – the film – begins with the catalytic and symbolic disappearance of former poet, a long-term sufferer of both alcoholism and family ties, Beverly Weston (Sam Sheperd). From then on, it follows a few days in the the lives of the Weston family – with their tsunamic matriarch, Violet (Meryl Streep), a cancer patient and drug addict with a worryingly keen doctor-dealer, and a live-in nurse bearing the brunt of her unpredictable mood swings and all-round general nastiness. Very quickly therein, we understand that Beverly is the glue that held the family together, whilst irascible Violet has made a lifetime chore of barely keeping herself together, much to the detriment of the Weston family – in particularly her three daughters, Karen (Juliette Lewis), Ivy (Juliette Nicholson) and Barbara (Julia Roberts), around whom director John Wells’ camera does circle the most, buzzard-like and morose.
The lives of the Weston women are wilfully complex, on the edge of collapsing at various points; a group of people inextricably bound to one another by blood yet unimpeachably thrown into one anothers’ paths because of it. There is a wider sense that Violet is not so much an anchor for the family but a pair of concrete boots, and for the Weston daughters, reconciling their individual and collective present is improbable at best. Particularly noticeable throughout is Letts’ taste for waspish and coarse dialogue, which adds plenty of venom to the latent conflict between Violet and her daughters, the disheartening basis of which seems to define their collective plight: that despite their own emotional roots, true love is a place far away from home, with no comfort therein.
Somewhat refreshingly, there are no easy answers to be found in the screenplay; the sense of despair and familial uncertainty is not honed in upon, though. There is no true sense that the film is leading to anything especially interesting, and very early on it feels uncertain of its own intentions, lost in dull direction. That said, Streep is fantastically thesp as the tsunamic yet vulnerable Violet, and her back-and-forth scenes with Julia Roberts would rank amongst the films few high points. Chris Cooper (as family friend Charlie Aiken) has a few potentially show-stealing lines too; yet, whilst there are no bad performances from the ensemble cast, it cannot be said that August: Osage County aims to take them or its audience anywhere but safe territory. Nothing in the film exemplifies it more than the tacked-on feel of the credits sequence – set to perennial middle-of-the-roaders Kings of Leon – designed to be bittersweet but ultimately confected.
Deryn O’Sullivan (@Silverscene_)
Deryn Paul O'Sullivan 