August: Osage County

August: Osage County

O-o-o-o-oh-oklahoma! Where the wind blows sweeping through the plains, hitting the members of Weston family that “August: Osage County” revolves around as they pay their last respects and disrespects to one another in this contentiousness-declaring Tracy Letts adaptation. A foul slog at 130 minutes, even with intermission, John Wells’ American melodrama is so full of viciousness and scorn that it plays like a screaming match for Oscar votes.

Little about this material rings true. Based on Letts’ Pulitzer- and Tony-winning play about three generations of an Oklahoma clan who gather in the family homestead after a tragedy (here transposed from August to December), pic has been pared down without being opened up; instead, it feels airless.

Certainly audiences will get what they paid for when Meryl Streep as perpetually stoned matriarch Violet Weston squares off against Julia Roberts as her most embittered daughter, Barbara. But those moments are few and far between in this dreary paean to recrimination, whose cast members seem determined to outdo one another for sheer hamminess.

Harvey Weinstein’s decision to release “Osage County” during Christmas week clearly positions it as his awards-season horse (as was “Silver Linings Playbook,” which got eight Oscar noms), but at least “Silver Linings” had humor as well as pathos. This movie is pure torture from start to finish, particularly if you don’t have great affection for these actors.

Margo Martindale is Mattie Faye, Violet’s sister who is full of energy (somewhere between Streep’s explosive temper and Roberts’ quiet anger). She holds a smart monopoly on the earth-mother role in the play. Husband Charlie (Chris Cooper), overwhelmed by women like Little Charles and anyone else with whom he has to share an elevator, fumbles through a grace before dinner that should have been an awkward triumph.

One of the best scenes in Letts’ play centers around Barbara’s wine-soaked girl talk with her sisters: Juliette Lewis as Karen, a flighty free spirit still looking for herself as she bounces from one boyfriend to another; and Julianne Nicholson as Ivy, the quiet middle sibling with dark hair who stayed home in Oklahoma. Their sibling relationship easy, slightly dirty and refreshing provides some relief between fights.

Less successful are Ewan McGregor as Barbara’s adulterous husband Bill, a pretentious college professor who can’t help but be boring in this company; Dermot Mulroney, playing too close to type as Karen’s sleazy fiancé Steve; and Benedict Cumberbatch, whose shaky take on cousin Little Charles proves that smug know-it-alls suit him better than insecure sadsacks do.

As the revelations keep coming about incest, child molestation and mistaken paternity and the participants shuffle off in defeat one by one until only Violet remains standing at last call “August: Osage County” finally boils down to two abandoned women: mother Violet and daughter Barbara. One will be saved by their encounter. The other will not. Streep may have less to lose than any member of this cast by going all out. But it is Roberts who emerges victorious here without a shred of movie-star vanity.

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