August: Osage County is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts and features a cast full of A-listers vying for Oscar attention. But the John Wells-directed film isn’t receiving overwhelming praise following its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday.
The film centers on an Oklahoma family, lead by Sam Shepard and Meryl Streep. The cast is fleshed out with Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Abigail Breslin, Dermot Mulroney, Margo Martindale and Chris Cooper. This group gets together after Shepard’s character, Beverly, kills himself. Violet (Streep) is a “full diva,” as The Guardian’s Catherine Shoard describes her, “ripping strips off the whole pack, sparing no prisoners beneath Al Pacino fright wig, choking the air with 65 years of unfiltered nihilism.”
Shoard is one of the critics that didn’t like the film, giving it just two out of five stars. “It's bracing, but it does feel closer to panto than melodrama, more exhausting than illuminating. Violet is a queen b**ch with only the tiniest of chinks,” she notes, later writing, “Yet for all the sparks, the character can't quite catch fire in these conditions. Such southern fried frankness might thrill those in the theatre but at the cinema we eat this sort of thing for breakfast.”
HitFix’s Drew McWeeny gave it a B- and wasn’t particularly overwhelmed by the final product. He notes that some sequences don’t gel well with the rest of the film and that some stars are underused. “It's not their fault… it's just that the film feels overstuffed, like director John Wells isn't sure how to squeeze the most out of these moments,” he wrote.
Tom Robey of The Telegraph was impressed, noting how the play was adapted by Letts for the silver screen. He really liked Roberts’ performance, writing, “...She slam-dunks the role – it's just a notch down from Erin Brockovich as her best work ever.”
This is another Weinstein Company production and you can bet that no matter what the critics say, it will be in the running for Oscars. Audiences can see it starting Christmas Day in limited theaters.
image: TWC