I just left the theater and boy it sure does feels like I took a step back in time. Have you ever watched a movie that affected you so greatly because it hit that close to home? August: Osage County did this very thing to me today as it painted an extremely accurate portrayal of the dysfunctionality that existed within my family for most of my life.
It centers around Violet Weston, who is played incredibly by Meryl Streep. I have to hand it to her acting as it just seems to get better and better with age. Watching her play a pill addicted and quite miserable woman throughout this movie brought up a lot of emotions within me. Her character was so believable that it was as if I was watching my own mother live out her life in a completely different family.
From the onset of this film, the viewer gets to see just how seriously addicted Violet is to her pills. As she stumbles around her husbands office, berating both him and a Native American woman who was hired to take care of her, she is completely oblivious to how much pain she’s really inflicting on the both of them. She is also totally unaware of the fact that her husband is preparing his affairs solely because he’s about to take his own life.
After a short segment where she contacts her children and they each come to her aid because he hasn’t returned home yet, his suicide is soon discovered. The rest of the film surrounds around the whole family coming together for his funeral and its proceedings. And it’s then that the viewer like me truly got to see all the dynamics of one seriously dysfunctional family.
First off, I want to say that seeing anyone commit suicide, whether its onscreen or not, is challenging in itself given how my father left this world in the same way. Even though I’ve fully healed from that tragedy, it did leave its scars and anytime they’re touched in some way, some tears and sadness are usually the result. But it was how Violet handled her husband’s death and how she treated all her family members who came for the funeral, that really struck a chord within me.
Streep beautifully acted out the insanity that comes from someone who becomes addicted to alcohol or drugs. In Violet’s case, it was prescriptions. In my mother’s case, it was both that and alcohol. One of the worst behaviors Violet demonstrated was how she constantly turned the focus off of herself and instead picked apart and tormented mentally and emotionally each and every family member present. Watching her criticize everyone with almost a level of viciousness in her words brought back all too well what my mother did with my sister and I.
You see, a person who is unhappy with themselves and also seriously addicted, does not want the focus or spotlight on themselves. Instead, they turn it on everyone else and tear them all apart, because on some sick level it makes them feel better to see everyone else miserable. They like to do this because they are the one that’s miserable and they don’t want to see anyone else happy. So as the addict tears apart those around them, they essentially cause each of them to react with negative explosions like her daughter Barbara did, who is played amazingly by Julia Roberts. I related strongly to Roberts character as well because she did her best to consistently support her mother, even as her mother constantly berated her. But at some point she had enough and lunged in rage at her mother to take the pills from her hand.
I went through that behavior too with my own mother. There came a day where I grew tired of her negativity, her woe is me’s, and the excuses of why she was always that way. I tried to get rid of all her alcohol and pills. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as Barbara and the rest of her siblings figured out in the movie. As they tried to remove all the objects of addiction, they discovered that Violet was still an extremely sick individual who needed spiritual and therapeutic help. But of course, she refused those things like most addicts often do. Addicts try to be totally self-supportive and tell themselves they don’t need anyone’s help. But deep down, all addicts are 100% insecure and unless they get that help, they either return to their addiction or remain just as sick without it.
My mother went through this her entire life. She constantly refused help. She never wanted to talk about the incest that happened to her. She didn’t want to discuss the pain my father caused her with his own addiction issues. She avoided any talks about her own childhood life, and just about everything else from her past. All she wanted to do was make it go away, except it never did. And as it reared it’s ugly head within her in different ways, she took it out on everyone closest to her just like Violet did in August: Osage County.
I want to say that I also liked how the director of this movie decided to end it. Violet basically pushes everyone else away through her negative behaviors to the point where she is left alone. It’s then that she seeks to be consoled by the only person left in her house who is the first person she berated in the movie, the Native American woman that’s there to take care of her. Barbara on the other hand has a moment of triumph when she realizes that she’s becoming her mother and leaves in her pajamas driving away in anger. As she pulls off to the side of a long country road, she takes a deep breath, smiles slightly, and continues on her way to start a new path free from the bondage that came from taking care of her mother.
It took me years to break free from my own bondage I had with taking care of my mother. The work I had to do to get there was painful but necessary. Most of it came after my mother passed away. Sadly, she died alone and her last breath came as she fell down the stairs in a drunken and high stupor. I hold no anger anymore towards my mother though. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
I love my mother just as Barbara loved hers in the movie. Sometimes, it’s all about letting that sick person go so that we may get well. Doing that can be the hardest step we ever take in life but I’m thankful I did it because today, I’m free from all of that pain. I’m free from my dysfunctional family. And I’m free from the prison I created for myself in trying to take care of an addicted parent.
Seeing August: Osage county was a good reminder of what my past was all about, but an even better reminder of how far God has brought me away from all that drama. Thank you God for helping me to get to where I’m at today!
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson