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The Arts Intel Report

Let Them All Talk

Streaming on Max

It’s tempting to sum it up as The Golden Girls meets The Group. Meryl Streep is deeply funny as a highly mannered writer intent on producing a sequel to her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel. Candice Bergen is a hoot as her oldest college friend, a bitter, down-on-her-alimony blonde making do selling lingerie. And Dianne Wiest is eccentrically sweet and erratic as their more gullible, do-gooder friend. But it would be a disservice to describe Let Them All Talk, a new Steven Soderbergh movie that debuts on HBO Max next week, as a comedy or satire—even though it takes place on a crossing (not a cruise) aboard the Queen Mary 2. Author Deborah Eisenberg, who wrote the screenplay, has created a humane, small-bore drama with a wicked sense of humor. It’s not like anything else, really, and, best of all, here’s another thing it’s not: a Nancy Meyers movie. —Alessandra Stanley