I didn’t care for the play, “August: Osage County,” when I
saw it a few years ago at the Ahmanson in downtown Los Angeles and I didn’t
like the movie. The Westons are so dysfunctional that, after a while, it
becomes difficult to understand why these people are even in the same room as
each other, much less professing to care about each other’s lives. And the
yelling. So much yelling, so many arguments, so many screaming matches (that
feel like monologues…….duh! This was first a play after all.) Of the dozen or
so fights, one might have proved effective. But when you put so many of them
together, it becomes entirely clear that long expository monologues are the
predominant technique used in this movie. Unfortunately, that leaves little
room for quieter, more subtle moments. And as much as I admire Meryl Streep, she
overacts, virtually chewing up every scene she’s in and forcing the rest of the
very able cast to amp up their acting to keep pace. The film adaptation of
Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play about familial resentments, secrets
and betrayals is a faithful, if heavy-handed, one. It’s about mean people acting
ugly and it’s a challenge to get through. 1/4/14
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