The title designates place and location: an unusually hot August in a rural area outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma 60 miles Northwest of Tulsa. Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard), a once-noted, alcoholic poet, interviews and hires a young native American woman Johnna (Misty Upham) as a live-in cook and caregiver for his strong-willed and contentious wife Violet (Meryl Streep), who is suffering from mouth cancer and addiction to narcotics. Barbara is mean to everyone, abusing towards Beverly, and accuses him of hiring Johnna with the intention of having sex with her. Beverly has to be driven down to Tulsa for her Chemotherapy treatments. Beverly tells Johnna that poetry books became his last resort to escape the misery of his life with Violet. Shortly after this, he disappears from the house, and Violet calls her sister and daughters for support. Violet's hair is almost gone due to her chemotherapy treatment and wears a wig for her vanity. Her sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) arrives with husband Charles Aiken (Chris Cooper). Violet's youngest daughter Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) is single and the only one living locally. Violet berates Ivy for not wearing make-up due and says that she will get a man if she makes a little bit of effort. Barbara (Julia Roberts), her oldest, who has inherited her mother's strong will, arrives from Colorado with her husband Bill (Ewan McGregor) and 14-year-old daughter Jean (Abigail Breslin). Barbara and Bill are separated and having marriage difficulties, but they put up a united front for Violet. Finally, middle daughter Karen (Juliette Lewis) arrives with the latest in a string of boyfriends, Steve Heidebrecht (Dermot Mulroney), a sleazy Florida businessman whom she introduces as her fiance. Even though it is insanely hot, Violet refuses to turn on the air conditioning. Violet is also racist and refuses to consider that originally America belonged to the Native Americans. Violet has the habit to win arguments by supposedly revealing the truth, which her kids are not aware of. She claims that Barbara was Beverly's favorite child and was disappointed in her, as she settled for Bill. Barbara is livid that Violet takes her drug pills, but Violet acts the victim and says that her mouth burns due to the cancer. After five days, the sheriff shows up with the news that Beverly took his boat out on the lake and has drowned. Barbara identifies the body and makes the funeral arrangements. Mattie Fae's and Charles' shy, awkward son "Little Charles" (Benedict Cumberbatch), misses the funeral because he overslept, and is met at the bus station by his father. Charles loves Little Charles, though Mattie constantly belittles her son's intelligence and calls him a loser. Charles believes that Little Charles is very close to Violet in terms of his behavior and mannerisms. Ivy confides to her sisters that she is in love with Little Charles, her cousin, who plans to move to New York, and that she cannot have children because she had a hysterectomy. She feels this is her only chance to finally marry. The family sits down to an awkward dinner after the funeral, fueled by Violet's brutally honest "truth telling" which results in Barbara jumping on her mother. Violet ends up attacking each and every member of the family with her verbal insults & she preys on their most intimate secrets to make them feel vulnerable and depressed. Barbara decides she has had enough of the drug addiction and confiscates all her pills. Later, after Violet has had a chance to sober up, she has a tender moment with her daughters and reveals that her own mother had a cruel streak. Violet shares a story that demonstrates how cruel her own mother was when she longed for a new pair of cowgirl boots when she was in her early teens. Instead of giving Violet the boots she wanted, her mother gave her a beautifully wrapped box on Christmas morning containing old, filthy men's work boots as a vicious prank. That evening, Steve and Jean are sharing a joint. Steve comes on to Jean, gets her stoned, asks her to show him her breasts, and starts to assault her. Johnna is woken by their conversation, sees this, and attacks him with a shovel. The commotion wakes up Barbara, Bill, and Karen who rush outside. Barbara confronts Jean and slaps her. This compels Bill to take Jean back to Colorado, leaving Barbara. Karen refuses to admit that her relationship is doomed and also leaves with Steve. As Little Charles sings Ivy a song he has written for her, Mattie Fae walks in and berates him. This exhausts Charles' patience with his wife's lack of love and compassion for her son, and he angrily tells her he is taking Little Charles and leaving, with or without her. Mattie Fae subsequently reveals to Barbara, who unintentionally listened in, that long ago she had an affair with Beverly, and Little Charles is in fact their younger half-brother as well as their cousin and that is the true reason why he and Ivy cannot be together. Barbara promises to try to discourage Ivy from marrying Little Charles, while not revealing the secret. Later, Ivy tries to tell her mother about her relationship with Little Charles. Barbara tries to deflect the admission to protect Ivy from the truth. Violet tells Ivy that Charles is actually her brother, something Violet knew all along. Devastated, Ivy leaves and promises to never come back. In the last confrontation between Violet and Barbara, Violet admits she was contacted by Beverly from his motel the week after he had left home but did nothing to help him until after she removed money from the couple's joint safe deposit box. By that time, he had already killed himself. This revelation leads Barbara to depart, realizing that her mother is far beyond help. Violet is left with only Johnna. Violet begins dancing to loud music but quickly becomes too upset and goes off to find Johnna for comfort. Barbara, driving through the plains, gets out of the car and cries. She then gets back in the car and continues west, following signage showing highways and number of miles to Wichita, Salina, and Denver.
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