WORDS Eoin Mc Cague

Tracy Lett’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County must be an actor’s dream. Mixing shades of Tennessee Williams, Samuel Beckett and Eugene O’Neill, I have no doubt that the interfamilial mix of melodrama and pitch black comedy, coupled with biting dialogue works wonders on the stage. As it stands, John Well’s slavishly faithful cinematic adaption falls flat on its face.

The film is not so much a drama about three grown up daughters (played by Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis and Julianne Nicholson) summoned home after a family tragedy, as it is a chance for Roberts to out-screech her on-screen mother, Meryl Streep (clearly hamming it up, and not for the first time in recent years).

They are supported by Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Cooper and Ewan McGregor, but it is only the latter (playing the separated husband of Roberts’s Barbara) who truly leaves a mark. Indeed, in perhaps the most miscast role of the year, Cumberbatch is left stranded as the rather bland cousin “Little” Charles Aiken, clearly struggling with a mid-western accent.

Directing techniques that apply to stage do not necessarily apply to film. While some (Tarantino comes to mind) have mastered the nuances of elongated dialogue exchanges, it becomes apparent quite quickly that Wells is content to just turn the cameras on and let scene, after scene, after scene of pure, unadulterated acting wash over us, and never let us forget we are watching actors acting. Frankly, the result is quite stifling, wooden and at times migraine-inducing.