August: Osage County - 10 stars out of 10

August: Osage County - 10 stars out of 10

Just when you thought that Meryl Streep couldn’t get any better, "August: Osage County" appeared.   This may be her most impressive performance ever.  Her character shows so many different sides and Streep delivers each with perfection, from the high anxiety of the dinner scene to her devastating childhood revelation to her daughters.  The likelihood of the Academy giving Streep a fourth Oscar and tying her with Katharine Hepburn’s record for most Oscars is miniscule, but if any performance was ever worthy of such an enormous statement, it is this one.  I think that this is the time for the Academy to acknowledge Meryl Streep as one of the two greatest actresses of all time.  It will be robbery for anybody else to receive this award, even after Sandra Bullock delivered such an incredible performance in “Gravity”.  This is her unprecedented eighteenth Oscar nomination over the past thirty-five years (yes, that’s a nomination every other year for a third of a century) and it is pointless to deny that she deserves a fourth Oscar.

Words cannot express how much I loved "August: Osage County," but this is my best attempt.  Aside from Meryl Streep’s beyond-noteworthy performance, “August: Osage County” has a lot to talk about.  Its script is an adaptation of a Pulitzer-prize winning play and the script delivers that unique sense of the stage, relying on strong acting instead of impressive scenery and special effects.  This is the definition of “ensemble cast,” affording each star an opportunity to display acting of the highest level.  Everybody is talking about Julia Roberts’ performance and she was very good, but the person that really stood out to me was Chris Cooper.  After establishing a very passive personality, he delivers one of the most impassioned monologues that I have ever heard.  The characters are well written as the contrast of Juliette Lewis and Julianne Nicholson enhances the strong personality of Julia Roberts.  Add in Benedict Cumberbatch (great monologue of insecurity), Ewan McGregor (not his best acting), Abigail Breslin, and Margo Martindale (almost as detestable as when she played the mother in “Million Dollar Baby”) and you have an awesome variety of personalities and ways of delivering emotions.  The script is laced with f-words but they work in this high-tension plot.  Most importantly, the events of the story transform each character and send them home with a new perspective.  Also, there are some awesome jaw-dropping surprises that all hit in waves of three or four shocks at once.  I think that this film deserved a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture, amidst other things.  “August: Osage County” is one of the best films of 2013 and should not be passed over on your quest to see all of the Oscar nominees this year.