Wells' "August: Osage County" / connection: Mike Nichols' "Who Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" plus Elia Kazan's "A Streetcar Named Desire"

There was only one way for John Wells to direct Tracy Letts’ iconic, imposing 2007 play “August: Osage County” – it won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony – and that was head-on, much in the same way that Elia Kazan and Mike Nichols handled their respective films of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). These are all seminal works in which stylized, outsized acting is not just the norm, it's a requirement.

In some ways, it's a show-biz tradition that Wells and company honor and continue.

Theatergoers have traditionally understood and appreciated the "affront" of over-the-top, passionate performances - as did moviegoers in the 1950s and '60s. Elizabeth Taylor won an Oscar for chewing the scenery in "Virginia Woolfe," deliciously so, and Marlon Brandon's performance in "Streetcar" (perhaps now seen as a caricature) set the standard for method (read: unnaturalistic) acting.  Even while those performances and those films are still considered "classic," matters are different today, given that moviegoers and critics alike are more cynical and less adventurous - and less likely to recognize a modern-day equivalent. They may fancy themselves educated and sophisticated when they really aren't.

"August: Osage County" is a willfully old-fashioned, flamboyant drama of rampant familial dysfunction that rather effortlessly melds the expected "power" of such a piece with some uncharacteristic subtlety and modesty.  It is not an accident that it's most powerful moments are not those of domestic terrors spoken with a roar but those murmured in hushed tones. It was planned that way by Letts who did his own exacting adaptation.

Letts, who also moonlights as an actor, apparently has an affinity for such incendiary material:  Going full circe, he played George in the recent lauded Broadway revival of Albee's "Virginia Woolf," directed by Pam MacKinnon and for which Letts won the Tony for Best Actor (2012).

The plot for "August: Osage County" is undisguised, naked in fact.  An unexpected death, a suicide, is the motivation for an unwelcomed family reunion among the Weston clan of Pawhuska, Oklahoma, also euphemistically known as The Plains - the cancer-ridden, drug-addled Violet Weston (Meryl Streep) and her three damaged daughters, Barbara (Julia Roberts), Ivy (Julianne Nicholson) and Karen (Juliette Lewis).

There are  husbands and boyfriends, but they don't really count.  This is a hellish matriarchy that thrives on equal parts of denial and confrontation.  Spiking this homemade stew with some whiskey is Violet's sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale), whose husband Charlie (Chris Cooper), a decent man woefully aware of the disrepair at hand, is the lone voice of reason.

The film's bravura centerpiece, as on stage, is a contentious family dinner that ends with Barbara literally lunging at Violet, physically attacking her and making it clear exactly who's in charge now.  The moment, a showstopper, shocks even Barbara who, wrestling with the prospect of losing her unfaithful husband (Ewan McGregor), now realizes that she is quickly turning into her mother - hardened, bitter and unforgiving.

Barbara is startled and appalled by what's happened to her.

There's a lot of grand acting in "August: Osage County," but the film belongs to Roberts who, in arguably her best performance ever, manages to evoke both pity and terror.  Taking a risk that few actresses her age would even consider, Roberts makes her angry misery visible.  There's no dazzling smile here.  She plays a woman who thought she escaped Pawkuska, failed in that escape (namely, her marriage) and now, forced to return, finds that it's not a matter of her being sucked back into the craziness but that she never really left. This is a major performance.

The nominal star of the film's impressive ensemble is, of course, Streep and like Taylor in "Virginia Woolf" and every other actress who has played Violet on stage, she's there to tear into Letts' choice script as if it's raw meat and she's been starving.  She plays, as they say, to the last row in the balcony, as befitting the material, but pro that she is, Streep knows when to pull back and act with just her eyes, which define her Violet.  She may have a wicked mouth, but there's constant fear in her eyes.

Also memorable are Nicholson in a quiet, affecting turn as Ivy, and the ever-reliable Martindale who, in another movieland scenario, would have played Violet.  But she makes a potent Mattie Fae, who can go from being warm and fuzzy to being a bully, scarily so, and makes the transition in a way that you cannot catch her "acting."  Her chemistry with Streep is effortless; they are sisters - in all their weaknesses and failures.

Note in Passing:  "August: Osage County" has opened to largely positive reviews, although there are those few who don't "get" the film's histrionics.  (Hey, that's the point, guys.)  More curious are those who have made the point of noting (perhaps bragging) that they never bothered to see the play.  Why?  What's the purpose? Perhaps an unconscious attempt to diminish the play's not inconsiderable reputation?

This proclivity brings to mind those hunters who relish the accomplishment of bringing down elephants.  It gives them a sense of prowess. Here, it's a way to minimize the play's laurels, not to mention the film's intimidating cast, while also elevating oneself. Having been one longer than it's reasonably healthy to be, I recognize that critics prefer films that need their support. "August: Osage County" clearly doesn't fall into that camp.

Credit: Claire Folger / The Weinstein Company