AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY (M)
Directed by John Wells
A 2007 hit Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Tracy Letts’ Oklahoman matriarchial tale of truth-telling and chickens-coming-home-to-roost is perfectly set up as this decade’s answer to Terms of Endearment, Postcards from the Edge and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.
While a starry cast of names and character actors fills every nook and cranny of the Weston family homestead (a beardy Ewen McGregor here, a kooky Juliette Lewis there), August: Osage County eventually boils down to a smackdown between Meryl Streep’s pill-popping, bitter Violet (who makes her Prada-wearing Devil Miranda Priestly seem like Mother Theresa, although here she looks more like Sean Penn’s Cheyenne from This Must Be The Place) and her cuckolded, resentful eldest of three daughters Barbara (Julia Roberts, in her best performance since 2004’s Closer).
