August: Osage county - a riveting drama.

August: Osage county - a riveting drama.
There are moments in a Movie when all elements of genius – acting, screenplay, context and setting– gather together making it almost impossible to define or evoke in words that feeling of awe and transcendence such a cinematic frame could bring. And more so when on the same screen we have the intensity of Meryl Streep and overwhelming presence of an aging Julia Roberts enacting some of the finest pages of a Pulitzer winning play written by Tracy letts - August: Osage county. Let me try and recreate a pivotal scene of this film in words. A daunting task, but challenging as a writer and worth trying.
Picture a large Dining room dimly lighted and furnished in dark wood. Three families have gathered together for a funeral dinner. Matriarch Streep (plays the role of Violet), her three daughters and their families wish to settle down for a quiet dinner reminiscing about the dead father. Streep’s husband (a brief role played by Sam Shepard) was found dead just a day before. A hypochondriac by nature, He supposedly disappeared from home one morning, and was found drowned in a nearby lake. Violet - an additive pill user alternating between heights of eccentricity to depths of moroseness wobbles across the room to sit at the head of the table in her mourning dress with a cigarette in hand and a disinterested look in her eyes and demeanor, pitifully balancing her shriveled wig to cover her almost bald head caused by the treatment for mouth cancer. Yet, she continues to incessantly smoke and suffer, wincing with excruciating pain with every intake of smoke that touches her damaged gums. Her dead Husband was a failed poet, who found solace in drinking, reading and markedly interested in TS Eliot’s blank verses. They were both raised in poverty, and found wealth late in their lives. They gave their three daughters everything they had. Unfortunately, none of them became successful as they hoped; nor did they have a congenial personal life. Except for the youngest daughter who lived in the same house taking care of her mother, and whose melancholy outlook on life irritates Violet, the other two moved out pretty young and living a rather dull and mediocre life. Barbara (Julia Roberts) eldest daughter held a lot of promise during her younger days, but drifted away into bitterness and solitude. She has a teenage daughter, troubled by her Parent’s unavoidable separation, experimenting with drugs and meaningless television shows; she sits with a morose face to eat waiting to get to the nearest couch to resume watching her monotonous Soap operas.
This is the dysfunctional, motley crowd assembled for dinner; each trying to hold on to their sanity and simmering frustrations with great difficulty. Putting on a show of decency, the conversation around the table slowly but steadily degenerates into insinuations, accusations, sarcasms and condescension, with each member desperately attempting to wean the conversation back to a sense of normalcy. Violet is unusually exuberant. She digs into each of them with an acerbic tongue. She goes out of the way to insult each one in the family. The gloomy atmosphere of the room turns into a dark funnel through which the stale and repressed emotions of its inhabitants swirl through, pouring itself out into a vortex of conflicting interests. A tipping point is reached. Voices run high, so do the tempers, and in one final burst of exasperation Barbara falls upon her Mom with a visceral vengeance wrenching a bottle of hidden pills from her hand, rolling on the floor, pinning her down, asserting her new found authority after the tragic death of her father. The scene lasts nearly 13 minutes with the camera moving across the room focusing now on Violet, and then on Barbara and others, moving back and forth, capturing the brilliance of the acting ensemble assembled for this movie. Of course, as usual Streep and Julia dissolve into their roles. The thin veil of respectability that exists between mother and daughter that hangs precariously, and could be cut asunder any moment with an awkward word or phrase is reflected beautifully in the performance of both these great actors.. Their eyes do the talking and each palpable minute there is rising tension till it breaks into a cat-fight undermining all sense of decency that may prevailed during this farcical family communion.
As I said, I can hardly do justice to the brilliance of the scene; yet I couldn’t stop trying. I remember watching an Indianized version of Osage county as a play in Kochi a few years back. It was pretty impressive. The timelessness of the story rang true even when adapted to Indian ways. And in 2014, I still vividly remember watching Meryl Streep’s 19th Academy nomination as Best actress from my Hotel in Connecticut; and Julia Roberts looking a little upset on being overlooked and nominated only for best supporting actress. Frankly, the movie is carried upon the shoulders of both these Women. But for the first time, I felt that perhaps Ms. Streep’s performance did not quite match up to the toned brilliance of a deglamorized Julia Roberts. And at after the movie, it is Ms. Roberts measured characterization of Barbara that lingers on. For those of you who have read my raving tributes of Meryl Streep in the past, this comment from me must come as a surprise. But the truth is, I try to watch a movie as objectively as possible, and to me it is the art form that must ultimately succeed, not the personalities of the trade.
Movies like Osage county remind us that good stories and great acting – both are equally important for a film to become a classic. The audacity of John wells, the director to take a play that was critically and commercially a great success, both in the US and Europe and translate the essence of it on screen must be commended. He needed brilliant actors to do the job; and he couldn’t have found anyone better than Streep and Julia.
Watch it. It’s a study in dramatics.
God bless…
Yours in mortality,
Bala




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