Sunday, January 26, 2014

Weekly Film Review: "August: Osage County" - Comm 460

I couldn’t wait to put up my weekly film review post this week so it’s a bit early but WOW! Just wow. Yesterday I went to the theatre and saw August: Osage County. I went in with high expectation, I mean anything with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts could never be anything less than extraordinary, but my expectations were met and far exceeded. As a self-proclaimed movie addict and connoisseur, I must admit that it really says something when I say that this is honestly the BEST movie I’ve ever seen. And after Silver Linings Playbook set my movie standards at an all-time high I never thought I would find a movie better, but it has been found!
The film is a dark comedy that masters family dysfunction. When the pill addict mother, Violet Weston’s (played by Meryl Streep) alcoholic husband Beverly (Sam Shepard), goes missing she calls upon her three strong willed daughters to help her cope. When the daughters, Barbara (Julia Roberts), Ivy (Julianne Nicholson), and Karen (Juliette Lewis) return to their rural Oklahoma home, “shit hits the fan”. The film’s plot twists are around every corner and the family tension reaches sky high; all the while their already intolerable mother grows more and more hostile.
This is the most superb cast to come together in quite some time and not one performance could be deemed anything less than exceptional. The two shining stars of the show however, and probably obviously, are the genius Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts. The relationship between this mother and daughter duo is tit-for-tat and tension ridden. The film can best be summed up as a raw, authentic, emotional, intense, and shockingly uncomfortable look into one family’s dysfunctional journey after a major loss.

Nothing that I could put into words could describe the phenomenon that is wrapped in the talent of this film. I think it is safe to say that August: Osage County is a must see!





No comments:

Post a Comment