August: Osage County screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and critics were already talking Oscar in regards to the stars, but not the film.
The film screened on Monday and all the talk focused around the film's stars, according to Los Angeles Times. Meryl Steep plays Violet, the new head of the household after the patriarch killed himself. The movie also features Julia Roberts as one of Violet's adult daughters and Ewan McGregor as her husband.
The movie, adapted from the Tracy Lett's play, is about family dysfunction and crisis and is already being noted as overly respectful of the play. And takes place largely in the suffocating family home. Everyone in the family has their issues.
Catherine Shoard of The Guardian comments on the family issues saying, "the question is not why Beverly killed himself but why it took so long."
Director John Wells "is respectful to a fault, retaining lines that feel redundant." Lett's' plays are fairly dark things - just watch Killer Joe - and Wells handles "his screenplay with such kid gloves," which lessens the effect of events.
HitFix's Drew McWeeny places some of the blame of the movie upon the director, saying Wells really isn't fit for the job of adapting Letts' work. "It's like he thinks his main job is to just get out of the way."
While the film isn't great, the performances, however, are. "Streep is often both touching and terrible as Violet's drug-induced fog rolls in." Roberts "gives it everything she's got. She goes right at Streep."
The Telegraph's Tim Robey enjoyed the movie the most, saying the performances are so affecting that it more than makes up for the misfires. "A vastly enjoyable theatrical banquet, if perhaps not a profound one."
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