LET THEM ALL TALK

There is no question that Meryl Streep is one of the most prolific performers of our generation in front of the camera. I would posit that Steven Soderbergh is equally as innovative and stimulating behind the camera. His 30+ year catalog of films is groundbreaking and filled with keen emotional insight and bold cinematic experimentation. These two entertainment juggernauts teamed up in 2019 to bring the highly entertaining The Laundromat to the screen (I reviewed that film back in January). In 2020, they would team up again to create Let Them All Talk.

Let Them All Talk is the tale of novelist Alice Hughes (Streep) as she makes a transatlantic crossing to the United Kingdom to receive a literary award. Accompanying her aboard the Queen Mary II are old college friends Roberta (Candice Bergen) and Susan (Dianne Wiest), and Alice’s nephew, Tyler (Lucas Hedges). Alice spends most of her time onboard working on her next novel rather than actually interacting with her friends, thus it is her nephew Tyler who becomes the lynchpin of connectivity between the three women. Years of each woman’s success, failure, triumph, animosity, guilt, desperation, betrayal, complacency, anger, disgust, and happiness are all unraveled in a messy and oh-so-stunted human way. By the film’s conclusion, we are left pondering how our choices and our tiny decisions in moments, days, months, and years can mold the consciousness and journey we undertake, and how those decisions also impact the journeys of others.

This is a sublime experiment of filmmaking. Short-story writer Deborah Eisenberg provides a screenplay, but much of the film is left to the improvisation of its stars. Because of this, the film is abundant with something that most fully scripted films lack… awkward silence. Common in real life, silence as one takes time to comprehend what they have heard and formulate how they will respond, is something normally absent in films where brevity and concern for run-time are deemed more important. Additionally, the majority of the film was completed during an actual two-week Atlantic crossing on the Queen Mary II, and Soderbergh employs minimal camera equipment and uses only the natural lighting of the ship. Some may find this experimental approach a detriment to the film, but I found it to be a wonderful compliment to the story of an author, the observations she has acknowledged, and the realities she has overlooked.

I would be remiss not to mention that while all the actors do a wonderful job of independently fleshing out their characters, it is Candice Bergen who rises ever so slightly above her peers. Her character is one that is deeply flawed, resentful, and sadly… desperate. She embodies every moment with deftness and aplomb and humanizes a character that could have easily been more one-dimensional in the hands of a less formidable actor. Also of note is the impeccable 1960s jazz soundtrack by Thomas Newman.

Let Them All Talk did just that, and they all had something to say. Now the question is how many will actually hear what they (and Soderbergh) talked about.