December 14, 2020 Issue

Anthony Lane, in his “Plotting the Course,” a review of Steven Soderbergh’s new movie “Let Them All Talk,” in this week’s issue, asks one of the great questions of 2020: “Could Susan be the first person on record to discuss her distant sexual history while playing Monopoly and Scrabble, and, if so, does a threesome count as a triple-word score?” I read Lane’s piece avidly. I saw “Let Them All Talk” last week on Crave, and enjoyed it immensely. But I found myself struggling to say why. Yes, there’s the treat of watching Meryl Streep, Candice Bergen, and Dianne Wiest interact. But I feel there’s more to it than that. Lane says, “Much of the tale has a noodling and speculative air.” “Noodling” is an apt description of this film. It has an easy, improvisatory air, like a Bill Charlap or Joe Lovano riff. Soderbergh has taken the slightest of storylines – a famous author goes on a cruise trip with her friends and nephew – and spun it into something beautiful and absorbing.