AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (Smokehouse/Weinstein 2013) E-One Home Video
It is one of
life’s cruel ironies that the ties that bind can also become the ones to tear
us apart. The chief problem with John Wells’ August: Osage County (2013) is that it has been mis-marketed as a ‘black
comedy’ instead of astutely being critiqued for what it actually is; a darkly
unsympathetic, unvarnished glimpse into playwright/screenwriter Tracy Letts’
idea of the traditional Southern family gone to seed: the Westons - one of the
most dysfunctional bloodlines ever to walk God’s green earth. The Westons are a
sort of American Gothic meets Tennessee Williams, with a dash of Jerry Springer
on the side. There’s virtually no soft center to this hard-candied treat; riveted
together by some powerhouse performances and a spectacular ensemble cast.
August: Osage County plays out like some hallucinogenic
and Freudian demagoguery with a Southern twang. But I think it exceptionally
tragic and grossly unfair most critics have chosen to attack the film as just
another “star-studded loopy melodrama: brash,
foul-mouthed, self-consciously offensive, intermittently insightful (but with)
a gaping hole where its heart should be.”
August: Osage County is
about real people at war with one another; a lifelong conflict whose casualties
continue to mount, the bittersweet betrayals only amplified with the passage of
time. The film is intensely scripted, and even more penetratingly acted by its stellar
roster of A-list stars.
Based on Lett’s
Pulitzer prize-winning play, August:
Osage County isn’t a waste of time: although, arguably, it isn’t the movie
everyone expected to see – certainly not the one I was gearing up for on a
Tuesday night. But I have a news flash
for anyone who thinks this movie is peppered
in “implausible plot twists and
overcooked dialogue”. August: Osage
County is closer to the truth for more kinfolks than you think. This may be
the saddest indictment yet on the status of the American family at large; but
it does speak clearly enough, undeniably resonating with unvarnished realities
that continue to afflict, confine and brutalize the human condition.
There is
nothing remotely funny, much less endearing about Meryl Streep’s Violet Weston;
a pill-popping, razorback gargoyle intent on depriving her children of every
last shred of dignity and their chance at happiness, just so they can all
occupy the same soulless and emotional vacant purgatory together. Violet is the
matriarch from hell; willful, self-destructing and corrosive to the sanity of
her extended family. So, she’s suffering from cancer. So what? Her divisive barbs have grown multiple tumors
on the hearts and minds of the Weston clan; time-released with the cruelest of
intentions to maximize their negative impact. Violet revels in these merciless
attacks (referring to them as truths),
enjoying the view as her three daughters come to blows and to grips with the
most mesmerizingly awful family secrets.
These
generational nuggets have been allowed to fester for quite some time. They’ve
already ruined eldest daughter, Barbara Weston-Fordham (Julia Roberts) marriage
to Bill (Ewan McGregor); a somewhat priggish professor, whose semantics pale to
the emasculating vitriol brutally inflicted on him by his own wife. The two
share a daughter – Jean (Abigail Breslin); a wounded, pot-smoking adolescent,
already well on her way to creating her own victimization. What’s wrong with
this family?
Plenty: from
Aunt Mattie Fae Aiken’s (Margo Martindale) wilful vindictiveness toward her
son, Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch), to middle daughter, Karen’s
(Juliette Lewis) self-medicating naiveté, choosing to throw herself at the head
of any middle-aged man with a flashy sports car who treats her like poor white
trash (her current lover, three-time divorcee/loser, Steve Huberbrecht (Dermot
Mulroney) has a predilection for very young girls – and his eye presently on
Jean) to youngest daughter, Ivy’s self-inflicted martyrdom, already begun to
erode her sense of purpose into brittle resolve (think Violet: Part Four), the
Weston clan are about to face their greatest challenge yet – forcibly brought together,
though ultimately internalizing things apart from the fray and pandemonium,
with only their own steel-trapped minds and fervid rage as their emotionally
scarred chainmail of self-defense. Hate
is the most powerful weapon and/or coping mechanism in their arsenal of hard
knocks. Contempt fills in the gaps where even the most basic tolerance ought to
reside.
August: Osage County takes time to hit its stride. I
confess; the opening scene where patriarch, Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) is
interviewing Native American, Johnna Monevata (Misty Upham) for a position as
the family’s cook and housekeeper – rudely interrupted by an obviously high and
frightfully gaunt Meryl Streep, spewing racial slurs and cackling like Margaret
Hamilton’s wicked witch from The Wizard
of Oz (1939) – had me thinking I’d made the wrong decision to
blind-purchase this movie. And fair enough, what played as three hours of riveting
tragi-comedy stagecraft has been somewhat distilled into just under two hours
of contemptuous revelations, never entirely reaching their Shakespearean
plateau. But August: Osage County
does delve into some fairly weighty material – occasionally through humor; though
even most of it is more scathingly sarcastic than laugh-out-loud funny.
Beverly’s
suicide – the pivotal moment of escape for this beleaguered/belittled shell of
a man – draws all of the narrative threads in the Westons’ familial tapestry
into a very tight and constricting knot, destined to unravel. Violet has been
dangling the specter of her cancer over the family for far too long. Pity the
poor sufferer, she says. But is it really sympathy Violet’s after – or merely
another tool used to manipulate, malign and drag her children through the mud;
shaking them free from their last vestiges of humane empathy. Violet’s a bitter
woman, somehow unable to identify her own grotesque complicity in the
dismantling of her family, even as she continues to see herself as the only
injured party.
Barb’s had
enough, and why not? Children should never be exposed to adult stupidity. But
Barb has had a front row seat to this train wreck for more years than she would
care to remember. It’s ruined her chances for a life apart from the fold. Bill
is desperately running out of reasons to stay married to her. She holds his
fleeting indiscretion with a young girl over his head like an anvil; blaming
his complacency in their marriage for Jean’s pot smoking, while making demands he
assume a more proactive role as her father.
On the other
end of the spectrum is Mattie’s cuckolded husband, Charles (Chris Cooper);
unable to fathom his wife’s vial disdain of Little Charles, who is actually not
his son (although Charles does not know this), but the result of an affair
Mattie had with Beverly many years ago. Violet knows this dirty little secret;
a revelation soon to wreak havoc on Ivy’s plans to run away with Little
Charles; the two having begun a secret love affair, believing they are first
cousins – not brother and sister. After the funeral, Violet becomes belligerent
once again; challenging her children’s bitterness on the pretext they know
absolutely nothing about real suffrage.
Recognizing
that her mother is heavily under the influence of prescription drugs - and
absolutely refusing to have this proverbial ‘pot calling the kettle black’ anymore
- Barb wrestles Violet to the carpet as the family looks on with stultifying
disbelief, forcible removing the bottle of tranquilizers from her hand and
declaring herself in charge. A short
while later, Barb, Karen and Ivy raid the house, discovering multiple vials of
prescription medications their mother has been chronically abusing. Barb
flushes their contents down the toilet (not very environmentally friendly),
before confronting the family’s physician, Dr. Burke (Newell Alexander) with
the prospect of a lawsuit if he ever deigns to write another scrip’ for Violet
again.
But ‘clean and sober’ will be neither as ‘clean’, nor as ‘sobering’ as anyone anticipates. After all, Violet plays dirty and
clearing her mind of its drug-induced haze only makes her more vicious.
Retiring to the nearby screen-covered gazebo, Barb, Karen and Ivy briefly
contemplate putting their mother in a home – possibly even a mental hospital.
Their discussion breaks up when the sisters quickly realize how far they have
grown apart. Ivy confesses she is in love with Little Charles. She also admits
to having a hysterectomy after a bout of cervical cancer the previous year.
Barb is appalled Ivy never told anyone until now. But Ivy points out that Barb
has hardly been a devoted sibling. She also tells Karen and Barb that when the
summer is over – and ‘come what may’
- she intends to leave Violet to her own devices.
In the
meantime, Johnna spies Steve attempting a moonlit seduction of Jean after
getting her high on some of his private stash of marijuana. Instead, Johnna
attacks him with a shovel from the front porch; wounding Steve in the arm, but exposing
his truer intentions to the family. Barb would prefer to claw his eyes out. And
Bill’s admonishment of Jean’s burgeoning sexuality (she’s only 14, remember?) is
met with a snide comment by Jean; that like Steve, dad prefers them rather
young. Karen and Steve elect to leave immediately. But Karen – despite her faux
naiveté – is no fool. She knows she’s picked another dog with flees as her
ever-lovin’ man, but leaves with Steve back to New York anyway.
The onus for
looking after ma’ now rests with Barb; especially after Bill announces he has
finally decided to file for divorce, taking Jean with him. The last to be
destroyed is arguably the most innocent of the lot: Ivy suddenly discovering
Little Charles is her brother – not her first cousin – thus, shattering her
stored up dreams for their life together, but not enough to dissuade her from
leaving Osage County and Mommie Dearest;
presumably, forever. Left to her own accord, and deprived of the necessary
audience to inflict her reoccurring miseries, Violet slips back into temporary
madness; comforted by Johnna as Barb drives away for parts unknown – her own
future equally uncertain and arguably, overcast.
August: Osage County is fairly downbeat and
depressing. This isn’t a movie to enjoy as pure entertainment, but rather one to
be heeded as a cautionary tale. The Westons are D-grade human beings, expertly
played by A-list talent, each orbiting a sort of utterly tragic and undeniably,
heart-breaking - if incurable - cruelty toward one another. It’s high time we
realized some situations cannot be fixed: some people too. Violet Weston is a
lost cause; destructive to her own wellbeing as well as others. She loves to
hate. Arguably, hate has kept her alive these many years. But it’s also kept
her isolated and apart from the people who might otherwise have come to her aid
in this hour of need. Does Violet need anyone? Debatable. Certainly, she doesn’t
seem to think so.
Meryl Streep
gives a disturbingly original and unapologetic performance as this filthy
harridan. Violet Weston should never have raised kids – just cobras. Her
offspring are both the benefactresses and the casualties of her despicable tutelage.
Julia Roberts is the other heavy-hitter in the cast; long ago having
transgressed against her ‘Pretty Woman’
image and wildly veering left of this side of Erin Brokovich for this outing. Roberts can definitely hold her own
with Streep; a different kind of maturity emerging from under the seething
venom and salty tears. Juliette Lewis is the dark horse, running a very close
third in her scene-stealing moments. The men who populate the story really are the
weaker bunch; particularly Benedict Cumberbatch – all but wasted in the role of
the ineffectual son, enfeebled by his own mother’s abject humiliations. In the
final analysis, August: Osage County
is a compelling character study about people we would rather not know, or,
perhaps, even acknowledge as existing. It hits hard and doesn’t play fair –
either with the characters’ emotions or the audience’s for that matter. But it
is potent – in spots – and revealing in ways that suggest more investigation is
needed to truly appreciate all of the subtext going on behind these very angry
words.
E-One’s 1080p
transfer is consistently film-like but suffers from infrequently soft image
quality with only light grain apparent throughout. Has undue DNR been liberally
applied? Hmmmm. Adriano Goldman’s low
lit, naturalistic cinematography looks marvelous, particularly sequences
photographed in daylight and bathed in a light bronze hue with occasional
splashes of color – like Steve’s flaming red sports car. Still, the overall
palette isn’t quite as bold as one might expect, favoring greens, burnt yellows
and very orange sunsets. Flesh tones look accurate, but occasionally suffer
from jaundice pallor in the lower lit indoor scenes. Contrast is quite solid
with velvety deep blacks and fine detail popping as it should – except in the
aforementioned softer sequences.
The DTS-HD 5.1
audio is fairly aggressive. August:
Osage County is primarily a dialogue-driven movie, but the overall sound
field is incredibly nuanced and robust; Gustavo Santaolalla’s underscore and
pop tunes featuring Kings of Leon, Eric Clapton and John Fullbright among
others. Extras are nicely put together, including a making of featurette that
is more comprehensive than most and an informative audio commentary featuring
director John Wells. Good stuff for only
a so-so movie with some solid performances to boot. Bottom line: recommended.
FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
3
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