Let Them All Talk

A film like a tent. You recognize the director and the art of actors, the meaning of improvisation and the realism of message. And, scene by scene, you discover the freshness of honest perspective about family, friendship, duties and jealousies, expectations and live. A cruise travel and livra, secrets, vulnerabilities of three people. Their connections. And, no doubts, Meryl Streep and Lucas Hedges.

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!

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.

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).

What an enormous disappointment.

I was very much anticipating this. Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen - what a cast!

What a bore. It felt like there was no script, that it was all ad-libbed and nobody knew what to say or how to bring any story.

ZERO character development. Almost NO conflict. Maybe five lines of conflict for the first 90 minutes. Then one scene sort of out of nowhere. It was strange.

The kid playing the nephew could hardly act. And apparently is incapable of washing nor brushing his hair.

The only thing I can figure is that they wanted to be directed by Steven Soderbergh. And with the music crescendo at the end, it made you feel like Soderbergh thought he just directed something deep. Instead it was almost two hours of... nothing.