Popcorn Kernels: Crown Jules

Alright, mini reviews are going to be a thing that happens from here on out. Although I will lavish my usual extended attention on marathons, current flicks, and Census Bloodbath features, I just don’t have the constitution to pen epic treatises about every single film I see anymore. I remain committed to reviewing everything that passes through these eyes, but not quite in the obscene quantity of previous months. That said, let’s hit the town with a pair of alternative Julia Roberts flicks for the sophisticated palate.

Erin Brockovich

Year: 2000

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart

Run Time: 2 hours 11 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The true story of a poor single mom who endeavors to provide legal help for a town being poisoned by a nearby factory.

Frequent readers will know that biopics really aren’t my cup of tea. If I want to step into a movie to escape boring reality, I don’t want to be forced to sit through anybody else’s boring reality, no matter how loud they shouted in the 90’s. Maybe that’s reductive, but for me truth is lamer than fiction. At least as a general rule of thumb.

That said, Erin Brockovich is pretty OK. Is it about half an hour too long? Definitely. Is it self-indulgent? Sure. Does Aaron Eckhart work in the role of a mutton chopped biker daddy? Hell no! But, like her or not, Julia Roberts is a damn movie star. She holds sway over the camera like a mystical snake charmer, no matter what role she has taken on.

This role in particular is a real boon to her talents. Breaking from her America’s Sweetheart persona, Roberts’ Brockovich is no apple pie-baking princess. She’s a crass, vulgar woman who dresses to show off her body and doesn’t take no guff from nobody. But she is also a woman of depth and compassion who makes great personal sacrifices for people in need, recognizing that same need in her own past. The film is a truly intriguing character study of a woman who refuses to let the world change her and pushes back against the polite, civilized society that is content to sit idly by while the citizens of a small town waste away of cancer and other maladies.

Roberts pours her heart into her depiction of this woman, proudly wearing her flaws on her sleeve. It’s a brave and open performance that never indulges in the jingoistic sentimentalism of many biopics. Moments like Erin discovering that she has missed her child’s first word are raw and real without a Hollywood gloss. It’s about as gritty and intense as that other Aaron Eckhart movie, come to think of it.

Director Steven Soderbergh, who I must confess I’ve never had any particular affection for, captures this story with an Americana flair that’s gorgeous, if a little needless. The preponderance of suffuse backlight and American Beauty-esque electronica make the whole affair seem like an ethereal dream, and the jaundiced yellow that inexplicably infects every one of his films provides an appealing counterpoint to the cool blue nighttime scenes. I wouldn’t argue that the aesthetic serves the story for better or for worse, but at least it’s nice to look at.

So, yeah. A pretty good biopic. By my standards, that makes it a classic of the form. While I shan’t be revisiting this film anytime soon, or – if I can get away with it – ever, I don’t regret the wand’ring hours I spent with one Miss Brockovich.

Rating: 7/10

Sleeping with the Enemy

Year: 1991

Director: Joseph Ruben

Cast: Julia Roberts, Patrick Bergin, Kevin Anderson

Run Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

After a woman fakes her own death to escape her abusive husband, he doggedly pursues her while she tries to establish a new life.

Every year for Halloween, Sergio and I have a double feature of spooky movies. Each of us gets to choose one, and Sergio’s pick this year was Sleeping with the Enemy, the Julia Roberts thriller. I reluctantly conceded to this decision, because the alternative was Titanic. Let’s just say my hand was forced. However, you can imagine my surprise when the 1991 flick betrayed more than a little carryover from the tropes and traditions of the slasher genre, which had hit rock bottom with a resounding splat but two years earlier.

While Sleeping with the Enemy is about as far as you can get from a body count movie (in an unlikely turn of events, even the obvious cannon fodder character is spared), the film draws from the spiritual core of the horror subgenre. While it’s essentially a character drama with a little raw tension for flavor, it’s cut from the same thematic cloth as flicks like Friday the 13th or Prom Night: What if a relentless, all too real stalker was hellbent on tearing your life- and your body – apart.?

To achieve this atmosphere, Sleeping with the Enemy rummages through the slasher’s bag of tricks. Even in innocuous scenes, the filmmakers continuously impose a sense that Julia Roberts’ Laura Burney is being watched. Sam Raimi-esque steadicam slinks around her home, reminding audiences of the unnerving POV shots from serial killers like Michael Myers and his brood. Many scenes also end by slowly pulling away from the action, a move that horror-savvy viewers instinctively expect to telegraph a lurking killer abruptly lurching into the frame. 

The stalker is even given a distinctive calling card – he wears Laura’s wedding ring on his pinky finger next to his own, a gracefully creepy touch that does wonders for the heart rate. And the finale scene is practically pulled from the pages of Scream, which would jab an adrenaline shot into the dead slasher’s heart five yeas hence.

This is all rather effective, because although the tools come from a lowly and unloved genre, they had become a major facet of the cinematic lexicon. By reimagining them in a more respectable context, it tapped into their cultural power to bring fear to an entirely new audience. Of course, the primary goal of Sleeping with the Enemy isn’t terrifying the audience, but it does pack a more spine-tingling punch than the average thriller potboiler.

The story the film does focus on telling is a simple one; that of a woman struggling to take her life back from the talons of a manipulative and wicked man. The opening sequence, which depicts her loveless marriage, is a harrowing ordeal and a distressingly realistic portrayal of domestic abuse, but it’s what follows that is even more heart-wrenching. Laura struggles to trust again, tentatively entering a relationship with her drama professor neighbor (both bear bafflingly curly manes of hair that I constantly worry will get stuck together like Velcro), but fearful of intimacy and the knowledge that at any moment her husband might find her. As a  character study of a damaged woman attempting to heal, it’s not bad, although it does shade into queasy Hallmark treacle at times.

The middle third is perhaps not quite as visceral or impactful as it could be and a late reveal is silliness of the highest order, but overall, Sleeping with the Enemy is a thrillingly functional paranoid drama. There’s a reason it isn’t remembered with the lurid fondness of a Basic Instinct or Fatal Attraction, but it’s definitely an unpolished gem that’s worth a second look.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1238

A Brief Note From The Stone Age

Howdy, y’all!

Don’t ask me why I wrote that. It’s been a weird week, I don’t know. As you may or may not have noticed, things have been a teensy bit slower than usual over here at Popcorn Culture. With my apologies, please allow me to lapse into a brief personal note of explanation.

First off, I just moved into a new, much larger apartment, so all the time I spend unpacking and merrily spinning in open spaces eats into my writing time. (My good friend Hunter over at Kinemalogue has also recently upped sticks – he’ll be copying my outfits next, just you wait. Why not head over there and wish him congratulations?)

Second, I’ve been dealing with a mighty unfortunate photosensitivity/migraine disorder that prevents me from looking at the computer for more than about twenty minutes at a time. While myself and a team of trained tortoises specialists are working this problem out, I’ve been dealing with a lot of pain. Especially considering the fact that I already work on the computer quite a bit for Arrow in the Head, I’ve been finding other methods to write reviews: namely, writing them freehand in a notebook, then transferring them into my blog when it is safe to do so.

Obviously, this is a huge boon for future historians who will be putting together Brennan-related museum exhibits, but it’s hell on my productivity. I assure you I’m working hard (both for my own well-being and for yours) to see to it that neither my health nor my posting pace flags, but I beg of you. Give a guy a break.

I’ve watched way too many films recently for a single human being to process, even a healthy one, so as a peace offering, here is another slate of delectable mini-reviews for you to pursue at your leisure:

Taken

Year: 2009

Director: Pierre Morel

Cast: Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

An ex-military operative turned overprotective father must tap into his old skills when his daughter is kidnapped on a European vacation.

Would you look at that, it’s another generally accepted modern classic that I’m late to, what with being far too busy mucking around in the tar pits of the early 80’s for something as low profile as the best American action flick of the year. Taken was a big surprise for everyone, most likely even Liam Neeson himself. A vehicle for an aging star that kept its hot young actress (Maggie Grace, fresh from Lost fame) offscreen for the bulk of its run time? By Hollywood’s myopic standards, this film should have been dead as one of Henry VIII’s ex-wives, but it takes a chance and owns it, crackling like a live wire.

The action itself is sublime, ushered to the screen by Luc Besson apprentice Pierre Morel. While every scene is guerrilla, MacGyver-esque thriller improvisation at its finest as Neeson takes every step possible to prevent his daughter from disappearing into a human trafficking ring within an estimated three-day time limit, there’s typically an additional frisson of tension layered on top of whatever Cool Thing he happens to be doing at the moment. His genuinely fleshed-out relationship with his daughter provides an emotional centerpoint for many high-octane moments, and in addition to that the sheer fearless audacity with which he charges into dangerous, unknown situations sends a tingle up the spine.

The key to this film is that Liam Neeson isn’t a beefed up superman. He is very skilled and utterly capable, but a fallible human being just like you and me. And Donald Trump. His age is hardly a factor in that (actually it just adds to how much of a badass he is). He’s just a regular father doing what any father would in his situation. He just happens to have a more suitable background for it than the average Joe Plumber.

This all works thanks to a sleek, punchy script by Besson and co-writer Robert Mark Kamen. It’s the perfect action set-up: tight, to the point, painted in clean, efficient, broad stokes that don’t forget to highlight each character’s individual attributes, interactions, dynamics, and contributions to the screenplay. Each story beat has an emotion attached to it, which is something that far too may slick action scenarists tend to forget.

The filmmaking itself has inherited a little too much of Jason Bourne’s handheld attention deficit disorder for its own good, but for the most part the action sequences accomplish what they set out to achieve: a gritty, realistic aesthetic without (mostly) sacrificing visual logic. 

The only true faults Taken has are minor quibbles. First, the actor playing Neeson’s liaison, who looks like a French Kevin Spacey, is more wooden than a Venetian gondola. Second, in several scenes (especially in the unrated cut), the film parlays a little too heavily with rah-rah militaristic jingoism. Action films have always been a haven for the politically conservative and I should hardly dream of taking that away from anybody, but whenever one gets a whiff of Eau de Guantanamo Bay, let’s just say it’s not a pleasant one.

But all that easily fades into the background of what is a just plain terrific action flick. It’s unflagging, unforgettable, and unmatched in the annals of modern American cinema. You could say I’m quite taken with it.

Rating: 8/10

Up in the Air

Year: 2009

Director: Jason Reitman

Cast: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick

Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Ryan Bingman’s job is flying around the country firing people, but he faces a big change when a young corporate hotshot attempts to centralize his operation, cutting costs and ending his beloved jet-setting, companionless lifestyle.

I think the theme of all my mini-review sessions is “Brennan ignores important movies until the last possible second.” To review Up in the Air, we need to travel back to a very specific moment in time: Back before the Oscar buzz and eventual backlash, back to the middle of our nation’s period of economic turmoil, back to when Anna Kendrick was just that chick from Twilight. Alright, are we there? Let’s go.

Up in the Air tells a tale as old as time. Young idealism vs. old cynicism, single swinging vs. family values, George Clooney vs. commitment. You know, the classics. However, by setting its story smack dab in the middle of the most financially and emotionally unstable period of contemporary American history, the film finds a fresh take. Not only does George Clooney’s character constantly travel, separate from the ties of human connection, he makes his living off the backs of the fragile people he is casting carelessly off into the void. When he is forced to show Anna Kendrick’s Natalie the ropes, her ruthlessly pragmatic working style collides with his carefully curated “empathy.” They both begin to realize that everything they thought they knew about the world is completely wrong.

That meeting in the middle – a moral grey area – is another relatively unique perspective that Up in the Air brings to the table, all wrapped up in a thrilling, emotional comedy of errors about the trials and tribulation of the many different paths one can take to be a human being. Up in the Air is an upbeat, downtrodden look at how disparate lifestyles collide, how we all react to change, and how we can learn to pick ourselves up again. It’s perhaps less concerned with the plights of the laid-off workers than it claims to be, but as a backdrop of human self-doubt and upheaval, it’s certainly affecting. It might not be powerful enough to ruffle the hair of someone like Donald Trump (I’m sure he’s hiding one somewhere), but as a working-class American citizen, it’s eye-opening.

As a work of cinema, it’s rather stunning as well. The cinematography is sleek, stylish and weightless, rhythmically pattering through Ryan’s routines, ruthlessly emphasizing the chasm between Natalie’s job and her humanity with cavernous negative space. And following a fresh atypical beat from city to endless city, announced with relentlessly cheery block letters. It’s a fun, sprightly piece of comedy that’s pliable enough to hold the weight of the intense emotion it’s called upon to bear.

It could hardly be so successful without its cast, a carefully selected slate of A–grade veterans and newcomers alike. Anna Kendrick manages the woefully unenviable tasks of holding her own against George Clooney and, in fact, performs the most memorably powerful scene in the film, Vera Farmiga shines as Bingman’s coldly powerful female counterpart – exuding a sort of clockwork inhumanity masquerading as warmth, showing what he could become should he venture further down the rabbit hole - and of course Clooney himself is a godsend, full of cocksure braggadocio that slowly crumbles and twists away into he wind. Only a man as handsome and untouchable as Clooney could have pulled that part off in its beginning stages, but he knocks it out of the park when it comes time to show his vulnerable side, too

Up in the Air’s conclusion is a little rushed and sloppy, but all in all it’s a wonderful little film about people, work, and love. Oscarbait has never been more approachable.

Rating: 8/10


My Best Friend's Wedding

Year: 1997

Director:  P. J. Hogan

Cast: Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz

Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

A prominent food critic realizes that she’s in love with her best friend of ten years… four days before his wedding.

Doesn’t that just sound like the plot of every single romantic comedy you’ve ever been shackled by the wrist to watch with a doe-eyed significant other? Now, it might be surprising considering my horror pedigree, but I’m far from averse to the sugary sweet romance genre. It’s not a huge leap from Karo syrup to corn. However, a log line like that doesn’t exactly inspire soaring confidence in a film.

So Imagine my surprise when My Best Friend’s Wedding turned out to be kind of delightful. From the old-fashioned opening credits (which featured a full, non-diegetic, choreographed doo-wop performance of “Wishin’ and Hopin’”) on, the film captures you with its charming flair, drawing you in before slipping in a subversive spin on the genre, slowly pulling you back into stark reality. Honestly, it’s a remarkable achievement in genre filmmaking, and it’s devilishly, almost terrifyingly sneaky in its second act, as Julia Roberts’ Julianne performs a series of increasingly despicable acts and descends into full-on Cruella DeVille territory.

Along with an inexplicable profusion of musical numbers (to the point that I half expected Julie Andrews to appear and sing some cheerful lessons – Lord knows Julia Roberts could have used some), My Best Friend’s Wedding also boasts a gay character that avoids over-the-top stereotyping, a veritable parade of delicious 90’s fashions, and a downright stunning performance from Cameron Diaz as the naïve, privileged fiancée. Diaz is utterly phenomenal in this film, exuding the exact kind of facile purity that Julianne expects from her one minute, then digging deep inside to reveal an unseen strength of character the next. A karaoke scene where she transforms from shy croaker to reluctant star of the show is possibly the finest work of her career, exposing a simultaneous vulnerability and lust for life that betrays just how much competition she’ll prove to be for poor, bitter Julia Roberts.

Of course, Roberts is also fantastic waggling her annoyingly perfect face at the camera like she owns the world. The amount to which she’s willing to concede to the amorality of Julianne is truly refreshing, especially buried as it is under all the typical Roberts-isms: her dazzling smile, her ludicrously curly hair, her disarmingly un-sophisticated laugh. The only weak link in the cast is Dermot Mulroney (of Insidious: Chapter 3) as the man of the hour, the titular Best Friend himself. Mulroney’s Michael is alarmingly devoid of inner life: it’s just cream filling beneath his white smile and toothbrush hair. This is partially the fault of the writing, but when he and Roberts are together, the film drags like a West Hollywood brunch.

There’s just no spark there. It’s hard enough the believe that these two have known each other for a decade (an issue the script attempts to address by having them remind each other of this fact every 2.5 minutes), let alone actually genuinely love another. She’s crème brûlée and he’s a slice of cheesecake without the graham cracker crust. Because of this, the third act sinks like a stone once the other, funnier character take on more secondary roles.

But until that point, My Best Friend’s Wedding is a charmingly witty, daringly different beast. I’m glad I was forced to watch it (for a podcast called Now Streaming, up this Wednesday!), and it’s a vital cornerstone in any romantic comedy education. Now if only they could dump Mulroney and make a movie where Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz have wacky wedding hijinks, then we’d be talking.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 2175

Out Of The Closet, Into The Fire

Year: 2014

Director: Ryan Murphy

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Julia Roberts

Run Time: 2 hours 12 minutes

When Sergio first told me about wanting to see the HBO film The Normal Heart I thought "Oh yippee, another dreary gay movie about AIDS." You see, as a gay man it is always nice to see movies about people who think like you, act like you, whatever, instead of the boring heteronormative poobah you get everyday. But the use of AIDS has become such a tired trope that it has become a running joke that you can't watch a movie with LGBT characters without it becoming a tragedy.

So I was understandably wary. Especially considering that director and executive producer Ryan Murphy has a history of headlining ambitious but messy productions *cough* Glee *cough*. But The Normal Heart, a story of the AIDS crisis in the early 1980's based on a play of the same name by Larry Kramer, despite being almost exactly what one might expect in terms of frothy period drama, is also one of the most harrowing portrayals of the disease put onscreen to date.

This ain't no "straight man learns to love the queers" story like The Dallas Buyers Club or Philadelphia, nor is it a quasi-romanticized Bohemian art piece like Rent. The Normal Heart is a straight up medical horror film, depicting the queasy reality of life for gay men in the early years of the decade as they were being cut down in record numbers by a disease that nobody understood and struggling to find anybody willing to help them.

It's gonna be pretty hard to be funny in the captions on this one.

Ned Weeks (Mark Ruffalo) is a gay reporter/activist who, along with several of his close friends, begins the Gay Men's Health Crisis organization to try to spread awareness and promote AIDS research after the death of his friend Craig (Jonathan Groff). With the help of the scrappy wheelchair-bound Dr. Emma Brookner (Julia Roberts), he and the board of the organization work tirelessly to right the wrongs committed by the American government, who seem to be content simply allowing the gays to die in record numbers.

As more and more of his friends and acquaintances end up dead, Ned's anger grows until he is constantly lashing out at the establishment on the air and in person, always shouting, never pulling a punch where he can help it. He can't stand the inequality of a world where a plague that is killing hundreds of people can simply be ignored by their own leaders because they don't want to get their hands dirty with LGBT policy. Perhaps his approach is tiresome and alienating, but it is the exact response a crisis of this level deserves.

When he falls in love with the debonair LA Times reporter Felix Turner (Matt Bomer), he begins to soften until the fateful day that Felix begins showing symptoms. The film turns into a race against the clock as Ned pushes harder and harder for adequate research, drug importing, and social recognition in a world where dead gay men are given no autopsy and stuffed into garbage bags. He's shouting into a void, trying vainly to save everybody he loves from near total annihilation in the face of a new plague.

If that doesn't sound like a horror film, then you clearly haven't seen as many as I have (which, in all likelihood, is probably the case even if you agree). An alienated man with friends and loved ones dying all around him while people in positions of authority are either helpless or unwilling to give aid (pun absolutely not intended)? That could be any slasher movie. That could be any number of haunted house pictures. That IS Jaws.

Two scenes in particular, a wild beach party on Fire Island where Craig's healthy exterior begins to falter and a subway ride where a symptomatic Matt Bomer sees the impact of his condition, literalize that horror undercurrent in a strikingly obvious and resolutely impactful way through jarring editing and stunning cinematography, two of the most (and some of the only) visually impactful moments in a film that derives most of its power from dialogue and performance rather than framing and color.

Unless you count skin tone.

Ned is met with opposition from both sides. Hey, you try telling an entire population of gay men who have fought their entire lives for the right to be physical with one another that maybe they should cool it on the whole "having sex" thing for a while while we wait for funding.

I rarely stick with movies over two hours long, especially ones that depict the political process in as much detail as this one, but The Normal Heart has an edge on those other films. It is an absolutely true story, a mind-blowing outrage that 1) Happened just barely over a decade before I was born - that's pretty modern if you ask me and 2) Has gotten nowhere near the amount of press that it deserved.

Sure, people will say that it's sensationalist, that there's two sides to every story. Maybe some straight people wanted to help. Whoop dee doo. They didn't. Not really. And it's hard to ignore the importance of the gay side of the story in the HIV epidemic, but that is exactly what has been happening for decades.

Which is clearly a mistake because: fabulous.

The film itself is haphazard, but strong. Ryan Murphy tips his hand somewhat with a lengthy series of bombastic and on-the-nose Awards Bait speeches and those surreptitious shifts in character that he is so known for. And the film, especially toward the end, has very little in terms of narrative thrust or momentum. The film can be aimless in terms of storytelling more often than it hits the mark. But man, can Mr. Murphy wield an emotional sledgehammer.

The sheer tortuous reality of The Normal Heart is an emotional wringer, operated by winning performances from A-list actors. Julia Roberts and The Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons especially bring the film an emotional core that shakes your bones and keeps you thinking about the film, even days later. And Mark Ruffalo is a fine actor who turns in a terrific performance, but he pales in comparison to the actually gay actors bringing their all around every corner - most of them, like Parsons and Bomer, drawing upon recent coming out experiences to fuel their rage and alienation.

Even the minor characters bring it all to the table. In fact I'd argue that the little known Danielle Ferland, who doesn't even have a picture on her IMDb page, turns in the most harrowing and committed performance in a cast full of tremendous talents turning it up to 11. I'm not ashamed to admit that I was crying in the car the morning after thinking about her scene. And I'm emotionally sturdy enough to handle LA traffic every day on my way to work.

I really should be getting an award for that.

The Normal Heart is an utterly necessary film for our generation and it's lucky enough to have a wide array of stars that will hopefully draw in viewers from a much broader demographic than it might have. It's inelegant and at times overwrought, but there is no denying the tremendous importance of bringing history to life in the most tactile, emotionally raw format imaginable. And not just for gay people. For everybody.

Because this fight isn't over. HIV transmission in America is still at epidemic rates and climbing. It doesn't get the press that it used to once people chilled out about the gay panic and focus shifted to Africa, but everybody - gay and straight - is putting themselves at risk because of lack of awareness. Gay men are still at highest risk of transmission because they are naturally exposed to the top tier of risky behaviors by default, but this is happening everywhere. A quarter of new infections are contracted by heterosexuals yearly and the CDC estimates that, if we don't get more careful now, over half of college aged gay men will have HIV by the time they are 50 and the risk to straights isn't much less terrifying.

Maybe this isn't what The Normal Heart set out to do, but the bleak, terrifying depiction of real life events should spur a new generation to learn the risks and how to prevent them. Living in the sheltered 21st century, it's easy to reduce the impact of what history teaches us, but the film hits a nerve, bringing the horrors of the past to today like no other.

We need to see it, both to learn the true story of the AIDS crisis and to prevent another from striking. To win a war, you have to start one. And that, hopefully, is exactly what The Normal Heart is going to accomplish.

TL;DR: The Normal Heart can be clunky at times but it is a harrowing and utterly necessary film.
Rating: 8/10
Word Count: 1509

The Summer Of Our Discontent

Year: 2013

Director: John Wells

Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor

Run Time: 2 hours 1 minute

MPAA Rating: R

Typically, when adapting a play for the silver screen, a director will take advantage of the action not being required by theatrical necessity to take place in mainly just one room by either expanding the setting or utilizing filmic tricks to expand the narrative universe. 

In the 1986 musical adaptation Little Shop of Horrors, Frank Oz keeps the location consistent but uses various imaginative flourishes like fantasy sequences to keep the film alive and makes great use of inherently cinematic close-ups to show details of the story a theatrical audience wouldn't be able to get.

On film, Noises Off... becomes a cross-country journey of madcap proportions and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead explores every intimate corner of Hamlet's universe.

In August: Osage County, based on the play of the same name by Tracy Letts, director John Wells makes the executive decision to do absolutely nothing. One gets the sense that what we see onscreen is the play as directly transcribed by a particularly dutiful screenwriter (who upon closer inspection turns out to be Tracy Letts himself, so maybe not so dutiful). 

As a man whose directorial credits up til now have only included 9 episodes of ER and one feature film three years ago, perhaps it was wise not to tool around with the script too much and to let the actors speak for themselves. With a powerhouse cast like this, this isn't a sin but the film itself feels as musty and dim as the house it takes place in.

But Meryl Streep.

This meandering family drama isn't so much a narrative as it is a showcase for today's brightest Hollywood talent. Everybody gets a chance to let their gray hair show and strip themselves of their star personas to bare their souls onscreen. This is the primary gift of August: Osage County, and it's not one to spit upon.

Meryl Streep stars as Violet Westin, the pill-popping cancer-ridden matriarch of a royally screwed up family. When her husband, the alcoholic poet Beverly (Sam Shepard), commits suicide, the extended family gathers for the funeral.

The visitors include Violet's sister Mattie Fae Aiken (Margo Martindale), her irritable husband Charlie (Chris Cooper), and their son Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch). Little Charles has a secret (something not uncommon to this family) - he's in love with the beautiful Ivy (Julianne Nicholson). Their relationship gives him a great deal of happiness, but the only problem is that she happens to be his cousin.

As Ivy tries to hide her incestuous tryst, so does her sister Barbara (Julia Roberts) try to hide her crumbling marriage with her unfaithful husband Bill (Ewan McGregor). And Barbara's daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin) tries to hide the fact that all she really wants to do is smoke pot with her Aunt Karen (Juliette Lewis)'s new boyfriend Steve (Dermot Mulroney), a sketchy gentleman at the best of times.

Basically the kissing' cousins have the most stable relationship in the entire film.

The cast does a uniformly terrific job bringing their characters to life (Cumberbatch, Nicholson, and Margo Martindale especially, although Meryl Streep's performance is of course unmatched), and in fact most if not all problems with August: Osage County are at the script level, if only because everything else resolutely refuses to get up to anything remotely interesting.

In fact, the few occasions where the other filmic elements peek up their tender heads, they seem to be actively conspiring against the performances. A key emotional point that is central to Meryl Streep's drug-addled breakdown is overtaken by shrieking sound design, an element that hadn't come into play before and wouldn't again, as if being punished for interjecting.

As the Westin family grapples with their manifold personal issues, tensions bubble and rise to a boil at a massive dinner table scene that probably lasted for an entire act in the original play. It is a monumental achievement in extended scene editing and provides a fantastic stopping off point, bringing all the interpersonal conflicts to a climax and exploding in a firework display-worthy exhibition of film performance.

Unfortunately the story has the tenacity to continue for a good 30 minutes beyond this point. The plot meanders, tossed like a beach ball between minor characters, of which there are too many too keep track of and fully flesh out. The film overextends itself in trying to showcase as many actors as possible and results in the sidelining of even the most important characters (Meryl Streep - duh - and Julia Roberts) for up to ten minutes at a time.

Pictured here deep in discussion about topics that really should have had more screentime than Abigail Breslin getting high.

It can't really juggle everything adequately and as such loses anything like a "theme" or a "conclusion," both of which are privileges reserved for more coherent stories. The story doesn't end so much as it peters out, but at least the final act has one solid scene - a confrontation between Violet, Barbara, and Ivy where the three women duke it out in a rampage of acting that culminates in my favorite line ever: "EAT THE FISH, BITCH!"

So the film definitely isn't a waste of time, but all the dramatics fade to vapor when the script turns up the heat and finds that it never really had anything to say in the first place. Definitely one to catch if you're in the mood to watch underused older Hollywood women eat it up, but it is a decidedly uneven piece of narrative cinema.

TL;DR: August: Osage County is a powder keg of great performers, but falls beneath the weight of a clunky script.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 963