Shot almost entirely aboard the luxury ocean liner RMS Queen Mary 2 as it crossed the Atlantic over the course of seven days – with 2,500 real, paying customers thrown into the mix –certainly fulfills Soderbergh’s logistical-challenge fetish. But once the conceptual conceit fades into the background, Soderbergh delivers an engaging four-pronged character study.
The journey kicks off because famed novelist Alice is being awarded a once-in-a-lifetime literary prize in England. For reasons that only become clear at the film’s very end, she won’t fly. So instead, her overeager agent Karen convinces her to travel by ocean liner.
Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen star alongside Meryl Streep in Let Them All Talk, which was shot almost entirely aboard the luxury ocean liner RMS Queen Mary 2.As the journey unfolds, Soderbergh unravels several somewhat improvised story threads, pushing the characters both closer together and further apart.
Every performer is at the top of their game, too. While Streep headlines and is afforded the most delicious lines, and Hedges and Chan radiate serious fluttering charm, it is Bergen who delivers something close to a magic act here. Barbara is desperate, fuelled by spite and hungry for reparation for Alice’s presumed misdeeds. Bergen makes her sour anger feel achingly real.
In between, Soderbergh wryly captures the everyday hum of life on an ocean liner, interspersing shots of the crew working away behind the scenes. He probably has enough leftover footage to make his own fly-on-the-wall documentary. I’ll buy one ticket for that passage, too.Plan your screen time with the weekly What to Watch newsletter.