August: Osage County (2013)
Directed by John Wells

Film Review

This big budget adaptation of Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a lot grander than it perhaps deserves to be and the presence of so-many big name actors in the cast diminishes rather than strengthens a first rate character-based drama about an incredibly dysfunctional American family. Meryl Streep comes out best as the narcotics fuelled matriarch, dominating the proceedings and savouring her lines with an almost sadistic relish. The other A-listers fair reasonably well but you can't help wishing this was a more modest affair rather than just another over-egged celebrity bash.

Film Synopsis

One hot August, a family reunion in Osage County, Oklahoma leads to a severe outbreak of antagonism and soul searching amidst personal tragedy. When her husband Beverly leaves home unexpectedly, Violet Weston, a cancer victim, gathers together her sister and three daughters. It is soon discovered that Beverly has drowned himself whilst crossing a lake on his boat. As the women prepare for the funeral old secrets and resentments come to the surface...