August: Osage County

2013 "Misery loves family"
7.2| 2h1m| R| en| More Info
Released: 27 December 2013 Released
Producted By: The Weinstein Company
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

A look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.

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Reviews

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.
Ricardo Daly The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
DesiDM0507 Very slow beginning. Story drags for quite a while. The script adds cursing just to feel more "exciting," but it's just annoying. Not sure what the point really was. Maybe what people think Oklahoma families are like? Or, what would happen if your family were all nut jobs? Big actor names for a bland story. They seem like it's trying to be "artsy." You don't see the characters, you see the actors, unfortunately. Would be a lot better with unknowns. The big name actors just take away from the originality and reality of what it may be trying to accomplish. I think the actors were given a script one day and just recited the next day in one take.Excellent cinematography and directing, though. The camera movements are clear. The scene changes are appropriate for the story. Very good directing in the sense that you can see what you're supposed to be trying to see. Focus on each important role was well taken care of. Lighting helped move the story along and depict the feeling the characters are going through. Music was very odd. Again, though, it may be the distraction of the horrible acting.
mark.waltz Three generations of a very estranged family gather together for the patriarch's funeral, which if I were a member of, would probably skip without apologies or an explanation. Don't let the surface friendliness of the characters in this clan fool you. They are all completely nuts.Matriarch Meryl Street makes Violet's Voice, which is basically pill addiction, and only mourning her husband for a minute before going on the attack. She's basically run daughter Julia Roberts off (by Robert's obvious choice), and it is ultra difficult for Roberts to return. The funeral is followed by a memorial dinner that makes a visit with George and Martha a day at the beach. The always powerful Streep adds another classic portrayal to her dozens of magnificent roles. Violet is a woman filled with anger and bitterness towards her three children, and it's obviously isn't grief talking. Secrets are revealed, old hurts are raised, yet biscuits with gravy are consumed without one being thrown.Among the others in this amazing ensemble are Margo Martindale as Streep's loyal but sometimes bluntly obnoxious sister, Chuck Cooper as her quietly suffering husband, and Juliette Lewis as the wild, party girl baby in the family. All eyes are on Streep however, as it was for me on Broadway when I saw Estelle Parsons in the role. Smartly edited by over an hour, this may not have been as fast moving as the play was. Tracy Letts wrote the best drama we've seen on stage in decades, and as my tagline says, Outstanding theater may make you weep. The movie may not have had the same effect, but I never was bored, that's for sure.
magnuslhad August: Osage County takes an outstanding script and layers in an A-list ensemble cast at the top of their game. The result is a compelling, complex narrative with gripping performances, that talks to the universal experience of family, growing old, and hypocrisy. When aging alcoholic grandfather Bev passes away suddenly, the extended family gather for the funeral and old grievances are aired once more, along with revelations that both delight and disappoint. Streep ranges from lost to laser-like vitriol, plausible in every beat, while Roberts is immense, completely dispensing with her American sweetheart persona, managing to go through the whole film without smiling once. The ensemble cast performances are all flawless, though the writing flags with one character, a playboy boyfriend included mostly for comic effect. His sports car blasting of pop tunes driving to a funeral seems inauthentic rather than idiotic, and his predatory motions towards a teenage girl seems forced and plays out with no surprises whatsoever. It is a surprising one-note caricature in a gallery of rounded, identifiable and all too human characters. The film is peppered with painfully accurate moments, in particular a resplendent dinner scene where the tensions boil over spectacularly. A story that will resonate universally, told simply and elegantly. Superb.
stl4646 Great acting as I would expect from this cast. You know that when the character is so unlikable but then you remember other characters played by the actor or actress that were so different yet played so well. All that said, this is an awful movie to watch. The only sympathetic characters were Ivy, her father and her brother. Sitting through the screaming, the profanity, the constant smoking, the characters' lack of manners, the sadness.. It's two hours of my time that could have been spent better on just about anything. Honestly, this movie was a couple steps removed from the presence of dueling banjos and I hated most of it.