August: Osage County trailer

vepyewwo

Based on a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Tony award winning play - 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.

Directed by John Wells. With Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Margot Martindale, Chris Cooper, Dermot Mulroney, Juliette Lewis, Abigail Breslin, and Sam Shepard.

JP Liz V1

Another Oscar nomination for Streep

clappyhappy

That looks great, brilliant cast.
Agree with Liz, looks like another nomination for Meryl Streep.
I love Chris Cooper, such a great actor.

clappyhappy

Is this movie out yet???

Shiraz 4.99

I watched this last night & gave up on it after half an hour,

just to the point where the father dies

My guess is you'd have to be a fan of character driven stage plays for this to suit you.
Much of the dialogue seemed pointless & in the short time I watched it I developed no feelings for any of the family members.

I may return to it if I'm in the right mood but I'll need to know there's some payoff.

FloatingVoter

Saw it myself. I'll spoiler this since its not out yet.

Its mainly a battle royale between Streep and Roberts. McGregor and Cumberbatch are basically furniture. The plot thickens after the funeral dinner.

Its a superior Terms of Endearment type ensemble but not going to trouble the Oscars. Meryl might get a nomination but I can't see her picking up another Oscar for this one.

_Whimsical_

FloatingVoter wrote: »

Saw it myself. I'll spoiler this since its not out yet.

Its mainly a battle royale between Streep and Roberts. McGregor and Cumberbatch are basically furniture. The plot thickens after the funeral dinner.

Its a superior Terms of Endearment type ensemble but not going to trouble the Oscars. Meryl might get a nomination but I can't see her picking up another Oscar for this one.

Funnily I watched and found it a vastly inferior Terms of Endearment type. I usually love dramas and I was expecting great things from such a fantastic cast but lord were they wasted on it. Non of the characters struck a relatable or sympathetic note,the storyline went nowhere despite some dramatic twists and turns and I came away feeling as though that in the 2hr I'd watched that I'd spent days with a really unpleasant family. It was dark and depressing with not so much as a rism of black humour, I cannot think of one redeeming feature. I found it absolutely awful as films go.
If it didn't boast some big names in the cast this wouldn't make it to dvd.

FloatingVoter

_Whimsical_ wrote: »

Funnily I watched and found it a vastly inferior Terms of Endearment type. I usually love dramas and I was expecting great things from such a fantastic cast but lord were they wasted on it. Non of the characters struck a relatable or sympathetic note,the storyline went nowhere despite some dramatic twists and turns and I came away feeling as though that in the 2hr I'd watched that I'd spent days with a really unpleasant family. It was dark and depressing with not so much as a rism of black humour, I cannot think of one redeeming feature. I found it absolutely awful as films go.
If it didn't boast some big names in the cast this wouldn't make it to dvd.

I only said that because I haven't seen Terms of Endearment in a long time. That said - yeah, it is selling a dead horse on the back of a starry cast (

many of whom only have minimal impact on events

). If you have a tenner burning a hole in your back pocket and you need to see a movie on Jan 24th - go see something else. The True Movies channel has better offerings.

Da Shins Kelly

Saw it tonight and didn't think it was all that terrible. Quite humorous in parts, although attempts to strike a balance between comedy and drama sometimes come up short, and there is plenty of misery to go around that it can feel exhausting by the end. I thought it had its moments though. Some of the dialogue is great and the acting is brilliant. The dinner scene in particular stood out for me, seeing

Meryl Streep come staggering in, sit down at the head of the table and proceed to pick apart everyone in the room was riveting, I thought

. Meryl Streep does a great job in the role of matriarch, and Julia Roberts holds her own as the favourite daughter. I quite enjoyed the ditzy Juliette Lewis too, strangely. I didn't really enjoy Ewan McGregor though. He was the weakest link the cast, for me.

It's not perfect. It looks very like a play on film at times, if that makes sense. Feels a bit claustrophobic. Still, I didn't think it was terrible.

Irish Aris

Shiraz 4.99 wrote: »

My guess is you'd have to be a fan of character driven stage plays for this to suit you.

This is me then.
Having read very little about it, I didn't even know is was based on a play.
And the trailer I've seen gave me the notion that this would be a comedy.
Sp it came as a surprise the way things turned out, especially in the last half hour.
I found the story really interesting and gripping (to the point were I would like to see it on stage in the future).
With so many characters, some of them were bound to be shallow-in this case most of the male characters.
For me it was mainly about the women in the family, they pull all the strings.
And the fact that there is no real redemption for anybody in the end made it even better for me.
The only downside on a couple of occasions was that the situation dragged towards hysteria (e.g

the scene on the table were they break the plates

, which, in return, made the performances (especially Roberts ) seem off a bit. But overall great performances for Streep and Roberts.

Can't really compare it with Terms of Endearment (which I also think is a great film), cause Terms had this bittersweet, romantic tone, whereas August is primarily cynical.
Obviously not for all tastes, as Shiraz mentioned, you need to like that kind of character based, dialogue driven film.

delbertgrady

I thought it was very good. Maybe it's because I went in with low expectations, 'cos the trailer actually really annoyed me. Maybe it's because I like stage plays, and - as such - expected it to be very "theatrical" in its setting, i.e., a bunch of people sitting around, bitching at each other, but whatever the case, I liked it.

I read Camilla Long's two star review in the Sunday Times Culture yesterday, and couldn't believe how negative she was about it. Her comments were so critical, I was surprised she even gave it two stars, and not just one. Her accusations that both Meryl and Julia are "just out to get Oscars" are absurd. Whatever about Meryl (who I thought was excellent), whose role is quite "showy", in that she's this cranky old, cancer-ridden druggie, so I can half-understand thinking she was just a caricature, but Julia Roberts is terrific in it, and there's nothing remotely cynical about her performance.

I do agree that Cumberbatch and McGregor are underwritten, but perhaps their characters got truncated when it was pared down for the screenplay. The original play is about three hours long. Chris Cooper brings a genuine humanity to it, and the ensemble works well as a unit.

I suppose those kind of "wordy", stage play adaptations are polarising. I can understand how people would hate them. However, there's a lot to be said for the (mis-)marketing of it. The trailer makes it out to be a sort of quirky comedy, which it's not, and the poster has an almost "cosy" feel to it, which it isn't either.
There are laughs in it, some of them really hilarious (and they're not in the trailer), but the trailer struck me as being for a film that "thinks it's funnier than it is", and I think if you went to it on the basis that it was a semi-zany romp about a dysfunctional family, you'd be unimpressed. I'm not suggesting that the reason anyone who disliked it was because they went with the wrong idea of what to expect, but I'm sure some people envisaged something else entirely.

FloatingVoter

delbertgrady wrote: »

I read Camilla Long's two star review in the Sunday Times Culture yesterday, and couldn't believe how negative she was about it. Her comments were so critical, I was surprised she even gave it two stars, and not just one. Her accusations that both Meryl and Julia are "just out to get Oscars" are absurd. Whatever about Meryl (who I thought was excellent), whose role is quite "showy", in that she's this cranky old, cancer-ridden druggie, so I can half-understand thinking she was just a caricature, but Julia Roberts is terrific in it, and there's nothing remotely cynical about her performance.

Yes, that was quite a hatchet job. Long is right about Streep - it was just show-off pantomime dame stuff. I don't think Streep was out to get an Oscar nod - just phoning in a hysterical mom-from-hell act. I began to see Brendan O' Carroll playing the part at one point. Julia Roberts on the other hand fully deserves the Oscar nomination if not the gong itself.
On the topic of the trailer alone, anybody notice how George Clooney flashes up on screen in big letters momentarily. He is a producer on it but they really are trying to make the cast look even starrier.

johnny_ultimate

Camilla Long is an appalling critic: attempting that Pauline Kael type of arrogance but having neither the depth of analysis, enthusiasm for the medium or even the writing skills to pull it off. It was a big job hiring a less capable critic than Cosmo Landesman, but Long might have hit the mark. She's obviously not the only critic to have utterly crucified this movie, but she's a writer I can't take even remotely seriously.

johnny_ultimate

Saw this today and really didn't care for it. It's definitely had the bare minimum of work exerted to adapt it for cinema - the cinematography is dull, the acting excessively theatrical and the whole thing extremely shouty. Shouty is optimum the word - it's an excessively shrill and loud film that despite its insane volume and endless character dramas is never funny, dramatic or insightful enough. It's an endurance test of misery and cynicism, and while to its credit it maintains that right through its inevitably dour conclusion (I had for some reason expected something far more accessible and inoffensive - Killer Joe should have prepared me!), I emerged feeling pummelled for no good reason. At times, it's relentless to the point of near absurdity,

like Breslin's character being groped by her aunt's fiancee or the 'eat your ****ing fish! scene

. If there's a hint of emotional subtlety in a scene, rest assured it will be followed up with another intense shouting match or unpleasant revelation (

even worse incest!

). Streep is definitely overacting as if to an invisible live crowd, and it's irritating. Others fare well enough - Roberts, Nicholson, Cooper - but I never believed in the characters as individuals with their own history and complex personalities. Certainly doesn't help that many of the cast members like Breslin, Lewis and Cumberbatch are barely granted any attention whatsoever to create characters that aren't dull caricatures.

I'd probably watch it in a theatrical setting, where this type of talky, actor driven presentation would perhaps play out better. But it IMO didn't work as a piece of cinema, and I have to say following it up with a trip to see the gorgeously silent The General was a blissful relief.

cloud493

Not only was it not good, it was awful depressing.

candy-gal1

Saw this yesterday, very good story, acting, and a good few laughs but DEPRESSING ending!

Baze

Streep plays a miserable bitch shocker.

Enjoyed it all the same, but it did feel disjointed and scene driven, rather than plot or story driven.

Interesting to watch but pretty forgettable.

Ardent

Saw this last night. Absolutely loved it. The first 20 minutes were slow going but I was glued from then on. I was so impressed by this movie that I have to say this is now one of my all time favourite movies!

I have to laugh at anyone saying Meryl Streep phoned in her performance. The woman is just immense in every movie she's in, and this is no exception - in fact I think it's possibly one of her best performances! A living legend.

The family dinner scene :eek: :eek:

Telecaster58

Ardent wrote: »

Saw this last night. Absolutely loved it. The first 20 minutes were slow going but I was glued from then on. I was so impressed by this movie that I have to say this is now one of my all time favourite movies!

I have to laugh at anyone saying Meryl Streep phoned in her performance. The woman is just immense in every movie she's in, and this is no exception - in fact I think it's possibly one of her best performances! A living legend.

The family dinner scene :eek: :eek:

Fully agree with this assessment. Streep is superb, again. In fact every performance in the film was good with particular kudos for Chris Cooper. I don't think the film even looked 'stagey' as some critics alleged though it felt claustrophobic, but I'd put that down to the bravura cast

Da Shins Kelly

Also, maybe the claustrophobia is meant to be part of it? I mean, there are a lot of big personalities all vying for attention and control, with this power struggle between the Meryl Streep character and the Julia Roberts character at the very centre of it. Maybe it's supposed to feel a bit overcrowded and claustrophobic.