Attention Oscar: the first August: Osage County trailer is finally out.
August, Tracy Letts’s Pulitzer Prize-winning dark comedy about a dysfunctional family struggling to coexist after its patriarch’s suicide, has barely stopped moving since its premiere at Steppenwolf in 2007. A successful Broadway run and international productions earned it a variety of awards in addition to the Pulitzer.
The new trailer for the big-screen adaption shows us a cast packed with talent—Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard, Abigail Breslin, Ewan McGregor, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, and Benedict Cumberbatch all appear—and soft indie music that belies the tale’s pitch-black themes. Streep’s drug-addled Violet is the trailer’s dynamic force, revealing family secrets during dinner and smoking like a chimney, while the rest of the black-clad clan throws sarcastic daggers and shares some laughs. Roberts’ Barbara gives the standout line: “Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed.”
August: Osage County opens in theaters November 8. Mark your calendars now, movie buffs.