Watching this movie was like taking a Brillo pad to my soul. Bad families are a perfect hell and this one is worst than most.The Weston family have gathered together for a funeral but there'll be more than one body on the floor by the time it's over. Matriarch Violet (Meryl Streep) is a vicious-tongued drug addict with no discernment between friend and foe. Her eldest daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts), is struggling with the dissolution of her marriage and trying to raise a teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) of her own. Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is trying to keep her new relationship a secret. And Karen (Juliette Lewis) is trying to flaunt her's as much as possible. Violet's sister Mattifay (Margo Martindale) keeps throwing her two cents in as much as possible, while denigrating her son (Benedict Cumberbatch) at every opportunity. Her husband, Charles (Chris Cooper), just wants to get through the funeral without bloodshed.
The men in this movie mostly just try to desperately hang on to the walls of this sinking ship while the women have knock-down fights over the placement of the deckchairs. Ain't family grand?
This is based on a play by Tracy Letts and I'm sure it's amazing live. I don't necessarily know if I'd be down for that. I can only hate myself so much in a given day. Still, I think it's important to have films like this. For some people, it exorcises demons of their own fucked-up childhoods and for the rest of us it reminds us our families aren't that bad. This get's the "soul-scarring" tag because I didn't hate it but I sure as hell couldn't love it.
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