“Thank God we can’t tell the future, we’d never get out of bed.” So speaks Barbara Weston, joining the rest of her despairingly dysfunctional family at her parents’ Oklahoma residence for a family crisis. And it is an accurate depiction of the 2-hour journey that this film takes us on, one full of family abuse and incest and heartbreak and countless other ordeals.
Adapted from Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer-prize winning play, the story is led by pill-popping, poison-tongued Violet Weston, whose mouth cancer and memories of her own abusive mother seem to be good enough reasons to spew discord at her kin. But Violet isn’t the only one with a loaded closet of skeletons – nearly every one of the characters in this film has a secret to hide, and you can be sure that every one of those secrets comes out at the worst possible moment. There is not one instant of this film that we see any hope for happiness, and that is what makes it so compelling: we want there to be a clean resolution, but that’s not always how families work.
Taking from its theatrical roots, the film is dialogue-heavy, but otherwise, it would never cross your mind that this story wasn’t originally for the screen… and it leads to some weighty one-liners. The performances in this film are brilliant, not surprising for a cast that includes Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts (both nominated for an Oscar for these very roles). All in all, a great film, but prepare yourself… If you think you have a messed up family, come watch this film and think again. Now playing at the Midtown Cinema.
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