Best Actress in a Supporting Role 2013: Julia Roberts in August: Osage County

Julia Roberts received her fourth Oscar nomination for her performance as Barbara Weston in August: Osage County. 

August: Osage County is an engaging drama about a dysfunctional family that reunite in the familiar house in Oklahoma after their patriarch disappears. I'd say the movie is slightly disappointing considering that the source material is phenomenal and the movie unfortunately isn't quite: this adaptation probably cut out too much from the original play and therefore its impact feels a bit muted. Nonetheless, the script still works very well and the movie itself is pretty strong. There are a few weak links in the ensemble (Abigail Breslin's role is underwritten, Sam Shepard is underused and the great Ewan McGregor feels strangely out of the place) but there are some great turns that make up for it. Margo Martindale delivers a great turn as the sarcastic and occasionally venomous aunt who hides dark secrets, and Julianne Nicholson steals the movie with her quietly heartbreaking performance. 

Julia Roberts is not an actress I'm particularly fond of. There a few performances from her that I like well enough actually but I find a great deal of her comedic performances to be rather cloying and most of her dramatic work to be somewhat phony. I had low expectations about her performance in this movie so it was a big surprise for me to find out that her performance in this movie is not only legitimately good, but actually pretty great. Roberts' performance actually receives some criticisms sometimes for lacking the softer side of the character: in my opinion, this is far from being a problem as I think that Barbara is a woman who rarely reveals that part of her personality and often appears as a cold and embittered person. Roberts portrays this side of her character to perfection: she never turns her performance into a one-note portrayal of anger (which easily could have been) but just naturally makes her harsh attitude part of Barbara and within it she manages to find some lighter, even somewhat comedic moments. One of the reasons why I don't usually love Julia Roberts is that I find her to be often playing for the camera and trying too hard to be likeable: I admire so much her performance here because she never tries to make Barbara any more endearing and isn't afraid to make her unpleasant - at the same time though she subtly shows Barbara's unhappiness behind every acid-tongued remark, and therefore she gains the audience's sympathy much more than in the movies in which she seems to be begging for it. Roberts also fits perfectly with the rest of the cast and shares great chemistry with all of its members: her scenes with Meryl Streep are the definition of explosive and they develop extremely well the relationship between Barbara and Violent, which is deep but sad and destructive at the same time; she also is very good in her scenes with Julianne Nicholson and Juliette Lewis and you really believe the three of them are sisters as the actresses portray very well both the rivalry and the affection typical of siblings. Roberts also knows when it's her time to shine and when she is supposed to hold back and let the other shine as well: and speaking of her time to shine, she does some amazing work in the dinner scene and her line-reading of "You don't get it, do you? You don't get it. I am running things now!" is chilling to the bone. 

Anyway it's not true to say that Julia Roberts doesn't have softer, quieter moments in the movie because Barbara's more vulnerable side actually comes out in some truly poignant scenes and Roberts's display of her weaknesses is something heartbreaking to see. She's great in the scene in the car after she has found out her father has died and she tearfully remembers the guy she used to date when she was young: it's an brilliant scene and Julia Roberts fills it with an unforgettable amount of regret, tenderness and melancholia, and the moment in which she begs her daughter to die after her is a small, deeply moving one. I also think she's great in a later scene in which her husband, who has an affair with a younger woman, admits he's probably never going to come back with her: it's a brief moment but it's quietly devastating thanks to Roberts who portrays wonderfully Barbara's broken feelings and her inability to understand what happened to their relationship.

Over the course of the movie Barbara becomes more and more similar to her more, and Julia Roberts handles this developement with brilliant subtlety: you don't actually notice it until the very end in which you realize how far she has actually gone since she arrived in Oklahoma. Now, I have to admit I think that the third act of the movie is its weakest part and a couple of times even Roberts herself isn't able to avoid her worst tendencies as an actress - particularly the "Eat your fish" scene feels phony and unconvicing but Roberts thankfully manages to make up for it with her final few moments in the movie as she finally realizes how dangerously alike her mother she has become. Her last scene that features her crying in the field might be unnecessary but Roberts is terrific in it and with her final, tearful smile she conveys a lot of feelings that don't need to be expressed.

In the end, this is a very powerful performance from an actress I didn't expect could reach such heights. This is clearly a case of category fraud since she's a co-lead but the performance itself is fantastic: Roberts portrays wonderfully her character's though appearence while showing the complicated emotions that lie under the façade and gives what is, without a doubt, best performance of her career.

4.5/5