Movie – August: Osage County

I do like dialogue heavy movies.My disdain is for films that are more about the look in the eye and moody scenes than actual talking. Can you imagine a book with only a few words in each chapter? No.Without much acclaim, however, this film didn’t stay long in the theatres so I decided to tell a few of the girls about it and off we went. After all, a film with both Meryl Streep (mum) and Julia Roberts (daughter) has to have something.And so with the negative hype, it turns out to be in the ‘better than expected’ category. In all, there are three daughters visiting after the apparent suicide of their father. In this dysfunctional family (we all have them) the father, a writer, was an alcoholic and the mother addicted to pills. The single daughter remains living locally, presumably to keep an eye on the folks. One appears to be flitting insecurely from man to man and makes a rare appearance home for her father’s funeral, with a questionable date. The other, (Roberts) appears the most together but arrives with her estranged husband and their rebellious daughter.The disturbing twist turns out to be that the single local daughter is going out with her first cousin. Actually, it gets more disturbing than that, but that's for you to find out.Oh and watch out for the forgivably, over-acted brawl between Streep and Roberts and the all-star cast.7½/10Smile factor 8/10Coffee rating: Filter