Let Them All Talk

I'm not sure if I liked the movie as much as I wanted to. The story sounded more interesting than it actually is. I catched myself a little bored at moments, waiting through the whole movie for something really exciting to happen.. but nope. It could have been better though if it wasn't for Lucas Hedges' annoyingly-forced acting.

Knowing ahead of watching that the dialog was totally unscripted and improvised I found myself appreciating the true art form by the actors. Knowing how petrified they all were during the shoot, it's never apparent from their seamless performances. They were all given a frame to stay in and also an ending to each scene. The rest is them and their own words and reactions. Shot in only 8 days, the film is a triumph of modern day filmmaking. My only criticism was the ambient lighting was at times distracting.

Not so much a movie as it was an outline for a movie. I loved the premise and the glimpses of character we see, but the improvised rambling felt like aimless meandering. The viewer is left feeling frustrated and lost.

The movie would have been so much more interesting with a defined structure. I loved Bergan's cynical and sassy character, and her trolling for rich men on the cruise could have been very funny with some well-written gags. Wiest's character is selfless and passionate, and we get a few small indications of how that impulse manifested itself in her youth, but how much more interesting would it have been had we seen perhaps how her giving nature affected her life (both the good and the bad). Streep plays a writer whose work delves deeply into others' lives, and at the same time, she is unable to connect with anyone. Is she just self-absorbed, or does she yearn for human interaction? I wish we could have seen more of that struggle within her.

And most of all, we never really find out exactly what Streep's character has written about Bergan's character that made Bergan's husband divorce her so many years ago. It's hinted at, and I think I sort of figured it out. But that information needed to be spelled out for the viewer.

There's also another character I would have loved to see more of. A highly successful mystery writer is also on the ship. Streep wants to pooh-pooh him as a hack, but he's actually thoughtful in terms of his work and his ability to "read" other people. There's a scene in which Streep is giving a talk on board, and the mystery writer asks a question about one of her books that makes it clear that he deeply respects her writing, and you can see Streep's heart melt with joy at being acknowledged. It is one of the only really moving moments of the film.

Oh yeah, there's a subplot with Streep's nephew and the employee from her publisher assigned to her. Completely useless.

What a disappointment! What a waste!

How much you like this will depend on how well or how little you think the ways Soderbergh and Eisenberg develop the characters (apparently from what Ive read it was semi improvisation, Altman but with locked-down Soderberghian angles and mis en scene instead of long lenses and wandering pans). I would have loved to see how much the actors just came up with dialog on their own (usually not what we expect seasoned pros like these women to do), but over this story of a storyteller and her friends and what stories and romance inform the fictions we create is compelling and interesting, and the setting makes for these characters to have literate, thoughtful exchanges about how bloody difficult it is to be emotional with one another (or you can *confide* in others, but depending on the company).

In other words, I can see how this is an "experiment" in some part of the form, but it's so satisfying to see that this direct or made sure to craft it into a film and not just a bunch of ramblings that don't come to a head (and this does). It's really about something, about how we reconnect or make new connections and how tenuous those can really be based on what's happened in the past and trust issues or just how much a planetarium can bring a man and woman together, and all the while it feels like the setting and style and music are closer to a Golden Age Hollywood movie (but with a Soderbergh twist).

I understand that they thought they were creating a "life like" cinematic piece but this movie is living proof that if you don't have a good story then no matter how perfect the acting is nothing will save your movie. This movie had NO story. No plot. Absolutely nothing happened. I'm not even joking - in the 2 hours it took me to watch this movie way more interesting things happened to me while I was sitting on the couch then in this movie - I went to the restroom a couple of times, got a few texts, ate dinner... There were so many random little "wtf" scenes here that went absolutely nowhere. The dialog is such a drag.... no one actually finishes their sentences. Everyone just rambles on and on for hours. Kind of like how I'm doing right now only 100 times worse. For the love of god - do yourself a favor - and skip this garbage. Let's show filmmakers that we deserve at least a good story, if nothing else!