August: Osage County Review

Movie Review- August: Osage County

“August: Osage County”, based on the play by Tracy Letts, focuses on a very sarcastic and drug-addicted woman named Violet Weston, played by Meryl Streep, who is suffering from mouth cancer. When her family comes to their home, secrets emerge and tragedy strikes. While this film has its humorous moments, due to Violet’s sharp-tongued wit, the film also has its dramatic moments, showing that this film has much darker tones than the humorous looking trailers depicted.

While the family begins to reunite, Violet’s alcoholic husband, Beverly Weston suddenly disappears. He is later found dead, having committed suicide via drowning. During all of this, Violet criticizes her family for various things, including sniping at her daughter, Ivy Weston for her choice in dress and lack of romantic life and ridiculing her 14-year-old vegetarian granddaughter, Jean for her extreme beliefs regarding eating meat. After Beverly’s funeral, more family drama ensues regarding the revelation of incest, secret affairs and an attempt at child molestation within the family. In the end, the broken family leaves Violet alone with her Native American caretaker, after Violet drives her family away, revealing her husband’s death could have been prevented due to her knowledge of where he was the night before his passing but blaming her daughter, Barbara Fordham, played by Julia Roberts, for Beverly’s suicide, causing Barbara to be the last family member to leave her mother, after realizing her mother cannot be helped.

The film consists of a great cast which includes not only Roberts and Streep but also Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Chris Cooper; Dermot Mulroney, Sam Shepard and Benedict Cumberbatch. The character development and plot is deep and filled with many dramatic plot twists that help the audience relate and connect to the characters on a more emotional level, especially Violet and Beverly, who the audience can sympathize with to an extent. To conclude, the film comes off as a comedy towards the beginning but eventually escalates into a drama that anyone who has ever dealt with a broken family or any major family problems can relate to.