MOVIE - August: Osage County

R (2:10)

Wide release 12/25/2013

Viewed 1/28/2014 with Sheila & Connie - El Con

RT Critic: 65   Audience:  72

Cag: 5/ I ended up thinking it was quite an exceptional movie - both story AND acting

Directed by John Wells

The Weinstein Company

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard, Abigail Breslin, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulrooney

My comments:  This is the story of the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional families.  I've decided I have a very (VERY) dark sense of humor, because this is another movie that when I started looking at it for the humor, I loved it.  Yup, it's a pretty dark story.  People dig themselves up out of a crappy childhood or they burrow themselves deeper.  This story contains a little of both.  And it's the kind of story that keeps adding layers after layer of "What the F?"  The lineup of actors was amazing, and the acting itself was, too.  I've got to give it to Meryl Streep - she doesn't care what she looks like or what kind of a woman she portrays, she gives it her all and her all is always unbelievably believable.  So I didn't even walk away from this could-have-been dark story with a cloud of darkness.  I enjoyed it very much, and I'm really glad I went to see it.  I loved it.

Reviews:  AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY tells the dark, hilarious and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest (actually, Oklahoma plains, which I don't really consider midwest) house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them. Letts' play made its Broadway debut in December 2007 after premiering at Chicago's legendary Steppenwolf Theatre earlier that year. It continued with a successful international run