Steven Soderbergh is a legend of independent filmmaking. His latest, the HBO Max comedy, “Let Them All Talk,” (12.10.20) was shot in just two weeks and was largely improvised by its cast. The film stars Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen, who play longtime friends reuniting on an ocean liner.
This comedic drama, shot aboard the Queen Mary 2 as the cruise ship went from New York to England, has Streep playing novelist, and compulsive self-doubter, Alice, a Pulitzer-winning high-brow author who has been invited to receive a prestigious literary award in the U.K, but, due to her fear of flying, insists that her literary agency pay for a cruise voyage, and also for two of her semi-estranged friends, Susan (Wiest) and Roberta (Bergen), as well as her neurotic nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) to make the trip alongside her. Her rules are simple: she can only socialize at dinner, and plans on spending the rest of the time working on a mysterious new novel in her cabin.
The result is another breezy success for Soderbergh, a film filled with a casual sense of humor and a vast amount of amusingly-rendered social hijinks. It’s all driven by the exceptional work of its three main actresses, most notably Candace Bergen as the saucy, gold-digging “friend,” still bitter over Alice’s loose and unauthorized use of her life in her most successful novel more than three decades ago. There’s some long-running resentment between these friends, and Soderbergh, quite amusingly, plays around with the deeply-ingrained fireworks. Susan is the middle-woman, trying to keep things as smooth as possible between Roberta and Alice, whereas Tyler is the messenger, setting up the dinners and all in the while trying to hook up with Alice’s new info-hungry book agent, Karen (another exemplary performance from Gemma Chan).
The film was shot on a shoestring budget; Streep claims that she was paid 25 cents for the film, which was shot in less than 14 days, and barely any professional equipment was used. In fact, the only equipment used was for sound. It’s arguable that no director has transcended multiple genres the way Soderbergh has, especially over the last decade. The prolific filmmaker has moved from psychological thriller to drama to comedy, never allowing the films to lose that unique Soderbergh touch. Even after it turns into shock and sorrow at its climax, “Let Them All Talk” is one of the lighter and most entertaining affairs of his career
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.