“Hell, I don’t know when you people are lying or what.”
“You’re not supposed to.”

The overwrought camerawork that transports Edward Albee’s play from the stage to the screen, as well as the general dramatic momentum of the play itself, must be acknowledged when discussing Mike Nichol’s debut film, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, however, the simple fact is that it’s primarily an actors’ showcase for the brilliant screen pairing of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. As a resentful married couple on the fringes of academia who invite the new biology professor (George Segal) and his wife (Sandy Dennis) over for a night of boozing and mind games, Taylor and Burton are vibrantly synchronized as they lay into one another with wicked barbs, their conversations spanning all manner of subject matter (children, career, memory) but always tainted by sarcasm and antagonistic riddles.

Married at the time of filming, and then divorced, remarried, and divorced again in the following years, the couple’s performance suggests a long history of private resentments, passive aggressive behavior, unhinged histrionics, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. This nasty business of wild mood swings and precise ridicule is commonplace, it seems—if only behind closed doors—but tonight they’ll go a few steps too far. Tossing the malicious, rapid-fire banter back and forth as if it came from some acrimonious screwball comedy, the pair quickly pollutes not only the evening, but their guests too, twisting their obnoxious argument into an abominable revelation of their deep unhappiness and luring their company toward the same abyss.

At one point Burton goes to the closet and pulls out a rifle, marches out to the living room, points it at his wife’s head and pulls the trigger. At that moment, the film is so dialed-in that he could have actually shot her and it would have fit. Instead, it’s a gag gun that sprouts an umbrella from its business end. The idea of spending over two hours with these despicable characters seems insane—this doesn’t seem like a good time at the movies, does it?—but once the psychological carnage starts it’s difficult to look away.