August: Osage County!!!!

August: Osage County.

What started out as a play by Tracy Letts has been transferred and made for the big screen with what is this years biggest high profile cast for a film. The original storyline is that a family is brought back together to the family home after a tragedy takes place, together they all reveal their own problems and thoughts of each other. 

The film itself takes place in the family home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma where husband and father Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) an alcoholic poet is interviewing a young native american woman Johnna (Misty Upham) to be a stay at home cook and carer to his wife Violet (Meryl Streep) . A drug addict and woman who speaks first then thinks afterwards is certainly a handful and who has been diagnosed with mouth cancer. 

As disaster strikes the family Violet rallies round the family members to return to the family home. First is her sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and her husband Charles (Chris Cooper), next is the youngest daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) the quiet single one. Barbara (Julia Roberts) the oldest arrives with her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) and her teenage daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin). Finally middle daughter Karen (Juliette Lewis) arrives with her new fiancée Steve (Dermot Mulroney). 

Finally all assembled at the family home they all soon enough start tearing into each other, Violet lets her family know what she really thinks of everyone and lets her bitter tongue do it's work. With Barbara and Bill's seperation revealed to the whole family she is in the firing line of Violet's vicious words. As a late running Little Charles (Benedict Cumberbatch) arrives revelations are soon revealed as to who he is seeing and also the shock of his real father. The sisters sit down together at last and talk and the truth finally comes out as they open up for the first time and what they think of each other.

The family itself all turn on each other, reminiscing of old times and how each sister is so closed and apart you see the fraught situations life can throw at you. The family you see on screen is how not to be as a family in real life, people cope with life in many different ways and this family on screen does everything the wrong way. 

It has to be said Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts are seriously impressive as they are both stripped right back to just dialogue filled scenes. Streep as Violet the bitter and opinionated mother matriarch is on top form and plays the drugged up mother perfectly. Of course the scenes where we see Streep and Roberts together are just perfect as they both bounce off each other certainly are able to bring out their characters with ease. 

A film that doesn't have all the big budget effects or seat gripping thrills but what it does have is dialogue filled to the point drama and with such a big named cast they pull it off. If anything this for me has to be one of Streep's best films since The Iron Lady and is Roberts best film in years as she is taken back to basics of just acting and dialogue. For anyone who enjoys a good dialogue filled drama with top performances from top actors showing off their raw acting talent then go watch it as you'll thoroughly enjoy it. 

8/10.

The Impossible!!!!

The Impossible.

One film that I have finally seen after putting off seeing for weeks it's The Impossible, a hope filled story about how amazing the human spirit can be.

Based on a true story it sees the Bennett family decide to go on a Christmas Holiday break to Thailand, upgraded to a beach side villa they spend time with each other at the beautiful holiday resort. While the family are sat by the swimming pool that's when disaster hits, a tsunami hits the resort washing away trees, buildings and of course all five family members. 

As Maria (Naomi Watts) and Lucas (Tom Holland) are left to drift in the water they finally unite and learn to help each other out to find safe shelter and help. As you follow their story you see how strong the mother and son bond is and how much they both depend on each other in order to survive. The simplest of emotional scenes where a mother looks at her son and then another stray child they've found in the water just shows the caring side of a family unit. 

As they both find help from the local people and are taken to the local hospital Lucas is told to help other people find their lost family members. The story then turns to the father Henry (Ewan McGregor) , as he walks through the mud he is eventually re-united with his two youngest sons Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). With the mother lying in hospital it's up to eldest son Lucas to find his other two brothers and father in and amidst the complete chaos at the local hospital. With chance meetings running through some of the scene's it's a question of will the mother survive? and will the family be finally re-united at last?.

The most impressive scenes in the film have to be that of the tsunami and the aftermath as the scale of the scenes are impressive. The way in which audio and sound are used during the film really make it feel real, from the whirling of the water and the burst ear drum whine it's clever. 

Of course it has to be said the film belongs to Naomi Watts and Tom Holland as the relationship between them as mother and son is really impressive and shows how strong a mother and son bond can be. With mother and son swapping places from a scene at the start and end of the film it's a nice little swap with poignancy behind it. 

The only downside I can find with the film is that some of the scenes are a little too predictable and you can guess what will happen next. Sometimes you feel the film could have gone into different territory and finished off some other peoples stories in the film but it's nothing too bad.  

Overall The Impossible is to be seen as a film about how amazing the human spirit can be and how important family life is as you never know what can happen next.

8/10.