PREVIOUSLY: JACK THE GIANT SLAYER
In the film adaptation of the play of the same name by Tracy Letts, generational trauma is hashed out when the Westons reunite after the sudden death of the family patriarch.
I feel like the trailer makes the movie seem more fun than it is. I mean, there are moments of levity, but it’s fun like watching The Jerry Springer Show is “fun.” It’s mostly pretty harrowing, when you get down to it.
Really, it’s less a movie and more an exercise in everybody else in the cast standing back to let Julia Roberts but mostly Meryl Streep ACT.
Despite clear directions to let those two shine, the performers with smaller roles all still manage to steal the show at some point or another. For my money, the real star here is Juliette Lewis.
I watched this on Tubi, and during the commercial breaks, I did some cursory research to confirm my memory and the general vibes I was getting from the movie. Julia Roberts was indeed nominated for Best Supporting Actress for this role for the Oscars that year, and Meryl Streep was nominated for Best Actress, but neither won. So then out of curiosity I looked up who their competition was (Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for Blue Jasmine [fancy seeing you here again, Woody Allen] and Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actress for 12 Years a Slave.) That was when I realized that this was the 2014 Oscars ceremony. The one with the Ellen selfie, which Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep were both in. And that sent me on a whole existential spiral, as that photo does every time I remember it exists. I haven’t bothered to watch the Oscars in years, but I was watching that night. Trying to get the “ultimate selfie” to break the retweet record previously held by Obama’s reelection celebration seems so weird and pathetic now, but it did kind of blow my mind when I saw it happen on live TV. I wanted to stay up for the ceremony because I liked Frozen a lot and correctly expected “Let It Go” to win Best Original Song. Yes, this was the same ceremony in which John Travolta introduced Idina Menzel as Adele Dazeem. Truly, one for the cringe history books. Ten years ago. It feels like another lifetime. It does kind of seem like things were simpler? That wasn’t necessarily for the better, counting how many openly abusive creeps in Ellen’s selfie alone have since been outed. But, like, social media was still new and shiny and fun for most people. The stakes of just existing felt lower. People seemed less angry and ready to fight about everything all the time? Anyway, back to the movie where everyone ceaselessly shouts at each other.
I haven’t seen the play, but I read it. And I liked it more than the movie. I have to imagine it would work better as a play. The movie is a fairly faithful adaptation, also written by Tracy Letts. But I just think this is one of those stories that works better when the characters are in the same room as the audience, where you feel connected to the moments of intimacy; where there is no screen shielding you from the tension building in real time, and you can see all of the actors reacting to each other constantly on a stage instead of having to break it up by cutting around between claustrophobic shots to fit them all in.
I don’t know, it wasn’t bad? But as I was reading the play, my jaw dropped at every reveal. I wonder what my reaction would have been to this movie if I’d gone in blind, if it would have hit harder. As it was, it felt both over the top and inauthentic. The dissolution of a family is definitely unpleasant to witness and I know it still manages to hit uncomfortably close to home for some people. But I would be curious to see a staged production to compare how different it feels.
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