Let Them All Talk (2020)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Let Them All Talk is an oddly prescient film in several ways. Filmed over two weeks with an impossibly skimpy budget -- Meryl Streep has gone on the record saying she was paid twenty-five cents for her performance -- its production is an act of sheer rebellion, really more an experimental performance art piece than a proper movie. Its cast of, what, seven or eight people performed with key moments scripted, but most of their dialogue was, supposedly, improvised. Director Steven Soderbergh himself served also as cinematographer and editor. There is no costumer or makeup artist, as the actors dressed themselves, no special effects, no set or production design. The film was shot aboard the RMS Queen Mary 2 using totally natural (or, at least, natural to the ocean liner) light. Other than his camera, Soderbergh reportedly only used sound equipment. 

Apart from it taking place on an ocean liner (thankfully not a cruise ship), the movie's tiny crew, cast, and budget might suggest a way forward for studios and indie filmmakers hurting after a year with COVID.

There's a lot to unpack here, but we should start with what story there is. Plot, in this product, seems to have been inspired by Deborah Eisenberg at the outset, forgotten about during filming, and then revisited during the editing stage. Alice Hughes (Streep) is a Pultizer-winning novelist working on a new book, which many people suspect might be a follow up to her most famous book published decades earlier. Upon learning she is receiving a prestigious award in the UK, she books tickets on the QM2 for herself, her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges), and her two university friends Roberta (Candice Bergen) and Susan (Dianne Wiest). Alice and her old chums have fallen out of touch, and their invitation comes as a mild surprise to all. But Alice's success as a writer has in fact damaged her relationships, and as her motives are unknown to all, the characters meet for a trip that will change their lives. Or, rather, that might. We don't really know. Rather unlike most of Soderbergh's plot-heavy projects, here he truly does "let them all talk", apparently hoping to make something of it. And, because he's him, he does.

Leisurely and soporific, this movie will not please everyone. Despite amazing performances from all cast members -- even a strange role for Gemma Chan as Alice's agent, who is secretly tailing Alice for news on her new manuscript -- the real star of this movie could be said to be the ship itself. Each scene takes place somewhere new on the boat, showcasing it for its glory and beauty even as we start to feel, like the characters, more and more constrained and trapped. It's not a claustrophobic sensation, but one in which the artifice offers only limited comfort, and the sweeping vistas of tranquil blue sea and sky belie the frustrating interpersonal cat-and-mouse games amidships. For all the calming colors and first-class elegance, Alice is having trouble overcoming her writer's block. Susan, a Seattle lawyer for domestic abuse cases, is happy to be on vacation; Roberta, a Dallas retail worker selling lingerie in a department store, is desperate to meet a wealthy, handsome stranger. The central dynamic here, though, is the slowly revealed resentment between the women: Roberta feels that Alice pirated her life story, turning it into fame and fortune for her own uses before leaving her friends in the dust. Could this voyage be a place to right that wrong, or a way for Alice to collect material for her sequel?

My favorite scene takes place during a public talk Alice gives on the ship. In a darkened theatre, Alice discusses her work in heightened language, describing quality literature (arguably discussing her own by proxy) as a sort of spiritual realm where writers and readers can commune; the camera cuts suddenly from a glowing view of an "iconic" Alice to her trio of guests in the dark, who are clearly aware that she in fact betrayed Roberta's trust and preyed on her for professional sustenance. They've already discussed amongst themselves that Alice sounds different and talks differently than she did in university; of course, we all change over time, but they mean that she thinks more highly of herself, and is putting on an artistic act, perhaps to feel worthy of her fame. Her act is shown for what it is when another passenger on the ship appears: a prolific, famous, rich writer of genre books named Kelvin Kranz introduces himself to Alice and the others. The ladies very much admire him, but Alice considers his work to be "Styrofoam" and akin to "jigsaw puzzles" in structure. It's all about the creation of stories, and Soderbergh himself is a third counterpoint to Alice and Kelvin.

This distinction is easy to grasp, and the ironies start to multiply; Soderbergh works hard to literalize the paradoxes, though, and his own multiple names on the crew list may be justified by this thematic concern, as we've discussed in his visual approach here. What plot he assembled in the cutting room may be understated to a fault, it is also as psychologically complex as a slow-burning puzzle and only really works because we fully understand each character in play. We don't fully understand Alice, and in fact we cannot help but judge her multiple times and ways over the course of the film. While she is arguably the protagonist, we are only within her perspective briefly near the end, and it is frankly a baffling sequence the movie would have done well to cut. We never really understand the motives of anyone, their goals, their reservations, their resentments. We never know the subject of Alice's new book. We never learn the full history of these women, or really anything about Tyler. In fact, one might say the characters only exist in any "real" way inasmuch as they interact with each other. Their relationships are the edges of puzzle pieces, and the movie traces those as it puts them together.

And isn't that just how a cruise goes? In any conference center or theatre or ocean liner (or Downton Abbey, for that matter), the "backstage" is meant to be invisible. The interior, the secret mechanism, the truth of functionality is that which is hidden, that which once seen disturbs the fantasy. I thought of this during the one scene when someone -- Alice, of all people -- wanders into a service corridor, where she is promptly escorted out by a staff member. She has wandered into a rare space that is not her own, and its coolly professional workaround stands in stark contrast to the messy relationship she created with her friends. Unfortunately, there's not much to be done about it by her or by us. Soderbergh seems content to just let them all talk, even if it's not anything you can really talk about.