Meryl Streep is everywhere right now. She’s dazzling doing the song and dance thing with The Prom. In a surprise to no one, she is fabulous in the multi-layered and complicated character that anchors HBO Max’s dazzling drama from Steven Soderbergh, Let Them All Talk.
The legendary actress portrays Alice, a bestselling author of high-brow literary lightning. She has a manuscript due soon and her agency is slightly worried. Karen (Gemma Chan) has taken over for Alice’s previous agent and cannot seem to get a read on where Alice is in the process or even if the process has even commenced!
Where some see conflict or trouble, others see opportunity. That fits Karen when Alice admits that she would love to accept an esteemed literary prize in person in London, but the author cannot fly. The agent floats the offer to send her and a few of her friends to London via the Queen Mary 2. Karen plays to Alice’s ego—which she knew would work. But she could never have known that the literary legend has a couple of college friends she’s hoping to reconnect with and what better way than over a leisurely cruise to London?
Susan (Dianne Wiest) and Roberta (Candice Bergen) haven’t seen Alice in three decades. That weekend in San Francisco didn’t exactly end well. There is a whole lot of animosity, blame, and an undercurrent of something intangible that permeates their dinners aboard the famed luxury liner. See, Alice is far too busy to hang out with Susan or Roberta during the day—what with her working on her manuscript, her daily 3 p.m. swim, and time with her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges).
The nephew came along at the request of his aunt to help her, almost like an assistant, but also to have someone on that journey who she does care about quite warmly. Their breakfast in her room scenes run the gamut between touching, functional, business-like, and downright mentor-ish. Hedges and Streep are fantastic together.
The soon to be 24-year-old actor is among the best of his generation. So, when it came time to cast the young man in this ensemble that includes Oscar and Emmy winners, turning to the Manchester by the Sea Oscar nominee had to be a no-brainer.
Hedges does a surprising amount of the heavy lifting to do in Let Them All Talk. Once we board the ship (which is 90-percent of the film), he is a go-between for Alice with her friends, her agent, and pretty much every other connection the famed author has and makes in the Queen Mary 2.
When casting folks were brainstorming who to play Tyler, they had to find someone who could brilliantly share scenes with Streep, but also Bergen and Wiest. Hedges’ embodiment of the young man is a sensational portrait and illustrates his vast talent. What else it spotlights is the script by Deborah Eisenberg.
The screenwriter has crafted multi-dimensional characters that these esteemed thespians must have thanked the movie Gods for the rich nuances that fill out each one of these souls. Eisenberg also has developed a landscape where the written word is celebrated and managed to give as much attention to the lingerie saleswoman as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Then, there’s that truly believable five-decade friendship and everything that accompanies that. No easy task. We buy it… for every single situational element that she has crafted.
The three leads are sensational—which is shocking, I know. They all stand-out, but there is something about what Bergen brings to the table that was shockingly surprising. She’s a Texan, through and through, but yet there’s something about her that draws Alice to her after all these years. Theirs is a relationship that is the most complex, needs the most work, and as Eisenberg has written it, truly vexing. That is largely due to Roberta’s mysterious agenda and how the Murphy Brown star brings her to life.
Wiest does subtle better than anyone and she’s asked to do that here in a manner that is totally fresh. She too is an anchor, like Tyler, but her effort to enjoy herself while her friends fan the flames of what separates them is as compelling to watch as Streep crafts one of her more complicated characters.
There is a lot of discussion about Alice and her success, especially between Roberta and Susan. They even wonder if she always talked “like that.” Streep does in fact deliver her prose in a manner that is wickedly unique. There’s a high-brow element to it that is palpable. She had to receive the script for Let Them All Talk and been ever-so eager to dive into Alice. She is among the more complicated people she’s tackled in years. Does it surprise that Streep’s sensational? Hardly. What is surprising is how one can tell how much thought and preparation went into the characterization long before a single scene was shot.
This is a fascinating project for Soderbergh to undertake. Given the cast alone, one can see why he leaped at the opportunity. The thing is it may be the most un-Soderbergh cinematic effort on his vitae. The helmer, wisely, let his talents do their thing—all while he framed his story with a visual cornucopia that gives off a profound feeling. There’s a textured tone throughout that could not have been easy to achieve with only a cruise-liner as your locale.
He and his DP had to have worked through the script, finding moments to provide visual cues that mirror the emotive pull of any particular scene. Now, I kid because I know that the filmmaker was his own director of photography (cinematographer) as well as his own editor. As such he controls the tone, even more than is standard for a filmmaker. But it is par for the course for this filmmaker. He adores the art of moviemaking so much that his desire to play all these roles on his films doesn’t come from a place of ego or power. Soderbergh does it all because all of it brings him joy.
Grade: A-