August: Osage County Movie Trailer
When a great script meets great acting, we have a Best Picture of 2013. I haven't made my final decision on the Sugar Awards by Larry H. (coming late January), so I reserve the right to choose another movie as my Best Picture of the year, but I'm just saying that currently Meryl Streep has done it again and should garner her eighteenth nomination. That's an amazing feat, but let's get back to Osage County.
Screenwriter Tracy Letts has created the Weston Family from Osage County, Oklahoma, who will be forever remembered as one of the outstandingly dysfunctional families in literary history. This movie about the lives of a mother (Steep) and her three daughters (Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, and Julianne Nicholson) is adapted from Letts' play. After you've seen this movie, and you will see it sooner or later, you will be convinced and fully appreciate that Tracy Letts is a woman. And that conclusion will be wrong. But Mr. Letts certainly is in touch with his feminine side.
In 2008, Letts was awarded a Tony for Best Original Play for "August: Osage County" and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Now that his beloved Weston Family has made it to the big screen, I suspect that he will find room on his mantel for an Oscar.
Meryl Streep plays the nasty matriarch, Violet Weston, who is under the influence of her pain pill addiction throughout the film. Watching Streep deliver her lines, with and without a wig, is a privilege. Is she the best ever? Yes. I recommend that you pay close attention to her hair and make-up, and her costumes, and her ever-present cigarette smoking, and her eyes, and her expressions, and her body movement. And that's all I can think of.
Julia, Juliette, and Julianne, as the three Weston daughters, were worthy of being on the same set with Streep. Julia Roberts has the second lead and she once again demonstrates that she is an exceptional actress, and is no longer just relying on her looks even though at age 46 she still has those beautiful, big lips and piercing eyes.
When a movie cooks as well as this extraordinary picture does at all levels, the actors benefit from a seamless chemistry, and usually performances rise to the occasion. When the "funeral dinner" scene allows all of the actors to appear on the screen at the same time, Letts' characterizations of his Oklahoman Weston Family is remarkable, and exhibits his genius use of the English language and quick-witted exchanges without a bobble.
Sam Shepard, Dermot Mulroney, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Abigail Breslin, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Misty Upham will now list this movie at the top of their resume because they will want to remind everyone of some of their best work. The acting is so good that I will say no more; you decide. And finally, let's give huge praise to Director John Wells who has heretofore been known for his work on "ER" and "The West Wing." Welcome to the Big Time, John.
Grade 94.