With a star studded cast and Oscar nomination for best picture it is easy to be drawn to the movie “August: Osage County”.

The film starts with a look inside the shared life of Violet (Meryl Streep) and Beverly (Sam Shepard) Weston. The entire film is a series of struggle and dysfunction and the opening scene certainly sets the tone. We discover that Violet is fighting mouth cancer and the drugs she’s been prescribed to help with the pain. When Violet insults the Weston’s new Native American housekeeper, something gives way in Beverly and he leaves. After days pass, Violet calls her most proximal and unappreciated daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) who in turn calls her sister, the most loved daughter, Barbara (Julia Roberts). With the two sisters and Violet’s sister and brother-in-law in the Weston’s house the family discovers that Beverly has not just run away, but killed himself. From then on, the movie focuses on the crumbling lives of the Weston women. Divorce, love between cousins, child predators, and uncovered affairs make up the broken pieces of this family.

“August” was for the most part, brilliantly cast with Nicholson, Roberts, and Streep stealing the stage, but performances by Juliet Lewis, the third Weston sister, Karen, and Dermot Mulroney, Karen’s fiancée, were lacking.

The best part of “August” by far though, was its ability to zoom in one disastrous moment. There is no happy ending and while there are light-hearted moments, “August” is done as exactly as should be; it is just emotional.