Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro Cast as Lead Roles in The Good House

De Niro Image via jwjensen / Flickr. Streep Image via mostribus81 / Flickr.

Only six months after the January 2013 release of Ann Leary’s epic Massachusetts-based novel The Good House, a film adaptation of the movie is already in the works. Vulture reported earlier that two of the greatest names in Hollywood, Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, will co-star together.

Although author Ann Leary is the wife of Masshole actor Denis Leary, our own Matthew Reed Baker said The Good House was so wonderful that readers are “likely to forget Denis and discover one of the best works of Massachusetts fiction in recent memory.”

The Good House follows 60-year-old Hildy Good (Streep), a New England realtor and a (sort of) recovering alcoholic, whom Baker dubbed “the novel’s most ingenious creation.” Hildy befriends a woman named Rebecca McCallister, who is the talk of the quaint Massachusetts town, and Hildy also rekindles an old flame with Frank Getchell (De Niro). Hildy is an amusing narrator, Baker says, “an unsentimental and complicated wiseass.”

Also in the mix is the progress of the small town: new money versus old money clash. This is something Massachusetts is familiar with — townies being driven out by newly wealthy folks who rebuild and resell. Though, this novel takes place in a fictional small beach town in North Shore called Wendover.

Streep and De Niro have co-starred in a handful of movies together including Falling in Love (1984) and The Deer Hunter (1978), but this is their first big project together in 17 years, since Marvin’s Room (1996). As of right now, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham is set to write the script for The Good House. There is currently no director tied to The Good House yet, but as Vulture says, based on these household names, it’s bound to be somebody important. (Too bad Ben Affleck’s busy.)