August: Osage County (2013)

Can’t go home again? In “August: Osage County,” you won’t want to go home. Taking his play to the screen, Tracy Letts’ family funeral corker blows fire with deep resentments, booze, pills, physical and emotional attack, drugs, incest, child rape attempts, and a suicide. Do not come for the entertainment. Come for drama largesse. We open on an Oklahoma couple well entrenched in the war that is marriage. Sam Sheppard is boozer poet Beverly, who sees caring for his cruel, dying wife (Meryl Streep) as a chore that infringes his boozing. Streep’s Viv has mouth cancer, much ironic as her mouth spews non-stop hate. So ironic. Bev hires an “Injun” –- their usage -– caregiver and then vanishes, forcing Viv to call in her grown daughters (including Julia Roberts as the oldest), and each arrives swinging in a one-upper game of FUBAR. Before car engines cool, tempers flare and brimstone flies. Look, the acting is amazing. Streep wows. Roberts fumes. Many scenes hit home, but it’s two hours of constant yelling as that Native American nurse (Misty Upham) silently looks on with flat eyes that say, “We lost our homes for these fools?,” and serves pie. Quite the stereotype throwback. B