Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and the entire crew moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma and lived together for a couple of months while making this movie. Bartlesville is a short distance northwest of Tulsa, is home to Phillips 66 gasoline company and is on one edge of Osage County, which is named for the Osage Tribe which owns nearly everything in the county, especially a billion truckloads of crude oil.
This is one of those movies that the critics will love and many of the viewers will leave the building wondering why they spent two hours of their lives on it. For those of you old enough to remember the movies that were made in the late 60's and early 70's, the cold, crude, visceral, shocking behavior of the actors will remind you of those movies from 45 years ago. Yes, it has a lot of humor. But, it is cruel humor. The ugliest side of human nature and family relations fills the entire story line. You have been warned.
The first few minutes of the dialog reminded me of On Golden Pond with Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn in the 80's. The theatre is filled with people from 60 to 90 years of age expecting to see their movie heroes shine. Then the vulgarity begins.
As for me, I enjoyed it. Sort of like Walter Mitty watching hulking bruisers crash, slash and slam at an out-of-control hockey match. The more gore the better. Watching Meryl Streep at her absolute ugliest in the first ten minutes of the story is more than some gentle souls can abide.
I also liked it. I thought they did a great job on the sets/props especially.
