August: Osage County [Blu-Ray]

Director: John Wells

Cast: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor

Release Date: Now Available on Blu-ray & DVD

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 9.5/10
Disc Rating: 9/10

 

Plot Summary:

A look at the lives of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose paths have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Oklahoma house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them.

‘August: Osage County’ tells the story of a troubled family that reunites after a tragic event. Upon their reuniting, old issues and problems are confronted and long kept secrets may finally be revealed. Everything could change during the events of this event and every member of the family must make decisions and decide just how they will proceed with their lives after everything building up for so long has finally been said and done.

This is a very powerful film and while it is mostly dialogue based, it is done so in such a fashion that is quite impressive and immersing. This may not come as so much of a surprise once people realize the screenplay was written by Tracy Letts, based off of his own play. Some may be familiar with Letts as he also recently wrote the screenplay for a film version of another of his plays, ‘Killer Joe’ which was released last year and was flat out amazing itself. ‘August: Osage County’ is hilarious, heartwarming and just might push you a little with how accurately it manages to form itself in a realistic sense and introduce us to an array of characters with whom most won’t be able to help find some of ourselves in.

John Wells does a fantastic job in the director’s chair and the cast could not be more powerful. Every member of the cast is in top form here and all of the greats present really helps to contribute in making this an even more incredible film than it might have been otherwise. The film includes fantastic performances by (though certainly not limited to) Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Margo Martindale, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sam Shepard and too many more incredibly talented individuals to include them all here. I would definitely give ‘August: Osage County’ a very high recommendation and while it may start out a bit slow while you adapt to and get to know these characters, it really compiles itself into a truly marvelous film that shouldn’t be missed.

VIDEO:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘August: Osage County’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation utilizing the film’s original 2.40:1 Cinemascope Aspect Ratio. The video is sharp, detailed and all of the colors and edges look pretty spot on here. I could not find any notable faults throughout and I think everyone should be quite pleased with this high definition video presentation.

AUDIO:

The Blu-Ray release features a lossless 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack which sounds pretty good. Considering the more dialogue based nature of this film, naturally there isn’t a lot of activity in the surrounding channels, though that is to be expected. Yet the emotional scenes where voices raise and the moments when the score kicks in all sound fantastic and the continuous dialogue mostly focused to the center channel is always clear and discrete while never becoming inaudible.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-Ray release of ‘August: Osage County’ features a pretty nice collection of bonus content. Included on the release is a 20 minute behind the scenes featurette titled ‘The Making of August: Osage County’ in addition to a featurette on writing with Tracy Letts and a number of deleted scenes from the film. Also included is audio commentary with director John Wells and Cinematographer Adriano Goldman on the feature film as well as the deleted scenes.

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They additionally will suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

Film Rating: 9.5/10
Disc Rating: 9/10

Own ‘August: Osage County’ today on Blu-Ray and DVD from The Weinstein Company & Anchor Bay Entertainment.