Suicide, Cancer…who knew they could be funny.
That was the first thing that came to mind while I was watching the movie, then add depression, addiction, statutory, incest, where do you go from there?
Today, I saw August: Osage County and when it was over, all I could say was that I was exhausted, emotionally and physically. Emotionally because there were scenes that will pull at your heartstrings and your emotions, hard, funny, sad, melancholy and physically because you were laughing so hard.
The title comes from the month, August and Osage County is where the movie takes place, the childhood home of the daughters and their mother Meryl Streep. I don’t want to tell you everything about the movie aside from the tagline “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 Oklahoma house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.”, but I will tell you about the cast and what a cast there is!
Meryl Streep is the matriarch, Vivian. She is the hardened, older mother who is angry at the world, raucous and takes it out on anyone who gets in her way, sometimes. There are other times she is loving and sweet and funny and tender. She is suffering from mouth cancer [not a spoiler alert] and addicted to the pills her doctor keeps prescribing. Let’s just say that in the end, the only person left to give her comfort is the woman her husband hired to cook, clean, take her to her treatments, basic care.
Julia Roberts is the oldest daughter, Barbara. Angry, sad, confused, dealing with a teenager [that pretty much says it all, right?], feeling like the world and responsibility for the family is on her shoulders, is it any wonder she hasn’t been home in a long time? She has some good scenes, some good outbursts and uses some language I don’t think I’ve ever heard her utter before. Her last scene is getting into a truck and driving away.
Juliette Lewis plays the middle daughter, Karen and what a twit. She plays “Miss Mary Sunshine” always trying to see the good in everything in a way that seems incredibly unrealistic. Even when discovering her fiance might have done something seriously unscrupulous, she still wants to be with him. Her last scene is getting into the car with her fiance and driving away.
Julianne Nicholson plays Ivy, the youngest daughter. She is the one who stayed behind, to take care of her parents and feels a bit of the martyr, but protests the idea. She wants to be seen as something more than nothing, especially by her mother. She is quiet and meek and smiles when she is near the man she loves and when she thinks about him and their future life together, something that no one else wants to happen. Her last scene is getting in her car and speeding away…from her mother and her sister, Barbara.
Chris Copper plays Charlie Aiken, Violet’s brother-in-law. He’s sweet, kind, caring, loves his immediate and extended family, fiercely protective of them even towards them. He takes all he can take from the elder women and then finally stands up to his wife “We’ve been married 38 years and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But if you can’t find a generous place in your heart for your own son, we’re not gonna make it to 39!” Go Charles! As Violet says about Charlie to her granddaughter Jean “yes, he is very nice, that’s because he smokes grass, a lot of grass” [we never find out if this is true].
Sam Shepard plays Violet’s husband, Beverly. He loves his wife, cares and worries for and about her, that would be the reason the movie opens with him interviewing and hiring a woman to take care of his wife.
Margo Martindale plays Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet’s sassy sister. She is loud and brassy and takes no crap from anyone as well as belittles people at a whim and has no love for her son, which is blatant. She can be funny: she gets upset with her husband for having a beer and watching tv, he retorts with “you’re drinking whiskey” her response, “I’m having a cocktail” and laughs. She loves her sister and her family very much, just isn’t always great at showing it. The look on her face when her husband tells her off is priceless.
Dermot Mulrooney plays Steve Huberbrecht, Karen’s fiance. He’s ten years older than her, greying a bit, likes flashy things and is incredibly inappropriate. especially with Barbara’s daughter. You want someone to stomp him.
Ewan McGregor plays Bill Fordham, Barbara’s estranged husband, what they are trying to hide from the family, unsuccessfully of course. It looks like he wants to be more of a friend to their daughter, Jean, than a father, which Barbara is having to deal with and it’s not easy. He’s a likable character and just wants people to be happy. Go figure. His last scene is driving away with Jean, heading back to Colorado.
Benedict Cumberpatch plays Little Charles Aiken. Even as an adult, they call him Little Charles and as Barbara says at one point “You gotta say little Charles or she’s not gonna know who you’re talking about”. He’s Charles and Mattie Fae’s son, grown up, but still seems a child in a lot of ways. He’s sweet and funny and kind and lights up around the woman he loves, they just want to shout it from the rooftops. He’s quite talented when he tickles the ivory and sings a song he wrote. He loathes disappointing anyone and knows he has, but no one loves him better than his father, Charles.
Rounding out the cast is Jean, played by Abigail Breslin, who is so grown up from Raising Helen and Little Miss Sunshine. She is 14 or 15 in the movie and so full of teen angst, aren’t they all? She is angry at her parents for fighting, splitting up, putting her in the middle, being dragged to Oklahoma in the middle of the summer, being the only kid, misunderstood and made fun of. She’s become a vegetarian and as she puts it, she won’t eat animals because when we do, we ingest their fear, which she tells the table of her family and they find it hilarious, especially when Uncle Charles looks like he’s in pain “Oh…Oh…I got a big bite of fear! And it never tasted so good!” Imagine being a teenager and having to deal with all of that, especially when you don’t know if you’re coming or going.
All in all, it’s an interesting movie, I definitely wouldn’t miss it, I would say the story is interesting enough, but the cast is incredible and to miss their performances would be ill advised [ooh, that sounded good!].
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1322269/?ref_=nv_sr_1
As a side note…the most difficult thing about seeing a movie alone is there is no one to talk to about it on the way out, especially a movie like this!
