Big Picture Big Sound

County of the Damned

"August: Osage County", the Pulitzer Prize winning play from Tracy Letts, has found its way to the big screen. Despite feeling too much like a play, especially early on, the story and performances are enough to pull you all the way in, at least in most of the scenes.

What prevents it from being great is the feeling that sometimes you are watching scenes, rather than a seamless film, and the dialog being too intelligent and biting. One or two people can be blazingly biting and witty in real life, but not almost every single person. Despite that, it is clearly a winner, and as is usually the case, any time Meryl Streep is around, power will crackle out at the audience.

Violet (Streep) is one of those characters that commands our attention. She is the matriarch of a family you would never want to spend an extended amount of time with in a closed area, and almost all of this film is spent in a claustrophobic space, with lots of people verbally smacking each other. Naturally, no one can outdo Violet in this department. She is a pill-popping drug addict going through chemotherapy for mouth cancer. Her acid-laced tongue has taken a toll on her health.

Her husband, Beverly (Sam Shepard), is not a drug addict. He is an alcoholic who disappears after a short while. His disappearance causes the extended family to congregate back under Violet's roof, and then the verbal fireworks accelerate from the already searing first twenty minutes.

Violet and Beverly have three daughters. Barbara (Julia Roberts) is in a bad marriage and angry, although she was clearly angry way before she married. Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is the shy sister who never escaped the homestead. She is sweet, but drifting aimlessly through life. Karen (Juliette Lewis) is the flashiest and least self-aware of the three ladies. All three do great work with their roles. Violet's sister, Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) is also wonderful as a combo of sweet and nasty, even if the sweet is obviously a phony and thin veneer.

There are males running around here also. Karen's boyfriend, Steve (Dermot Mulroney), is successful and sleazy; Mattie Fae's husband, Charles (Chris Cooper) is, along with Ivy, one of the two nice ones. He, in addition, is also quite grounded. Why he stays with Mattie Fae is a mystery, however, and that mystery is never answered. Their son, "Little Charles" (Benedict Cumberbatch) is not quite brain-damaged, but he is painfully shy and unsure of himself. Considering all of the whip-like dialog everyone else is tossing out, he seems even more like a dullard.

Beverly's disappearance is the excuse for everyone to descend upon the house and from there, it is a no-holds-barred verbal boxing match. It is fun in a voyeuristic way. No matter how much pain they all inflict upon each other, you can't help but stare. We do love being consumed by other people's pain. It makes our own pains in life seem almost trivial, at least while we are watching.

Director John Wells holds up his end of the deal by not trying to take over and just letting the ultra-talented cast do the hard work, and do they ever work. Julia Roberts does a great job, but you can see her working in a couple of scenes.

Despite a tacked-on final few minutes that totally eluded me in its meaning, and its other minor shortcomings, "August: Osage County" is well worth your time and cash, and you can be certain that Streep will garner a nomination. I am hopeful that Cooper might pull one out, also. Get your popcorn and watch a very fun train wreck, and be thankful for your own family, warts and all.