Film

Let Them All Talk

A Meryl Streep vehicle about a famous author sailing to Europe with old friends and her nephew, directed by Steven Soderbergh. It's a character study disguised as a lark—warm, digressive, funny in quiet ways. For people who like their comedies conversational and their dramas unsentimental.

TMDb rating2.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy talky, sharp-tongued comedy where the pleasure lives in conversation, with old friends bickering over meals and cabin-deck small talk rather than in plot turns.

Skip it if you want a brisk story with clear stakes; this one drifts through long dinners and ambling exchanges, and its comedy often feels more wistful than laugh-out-loud.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about nearly two hours at an unhurried pace, letting scenes breathe and jokes land slowly, with a gentle, reflective tone rather than constant energy.

If you liked this

Mamma Mia!2008

Streep in full effervescent bloom, surrounded by capable people and ABBA songs. It's pure pleasure—permission to feel light and a little silly about everything, including aging and friendship.

But If you think musicals stopped being respectable somewhere around 1965, this won't change your mind. The plot barely exists.

Mamma Mia! poster

The Savages2007

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman navigate family obligation and resentment with bruised honesty. It's funny and painful in the way real life is—never letting you settle into one feeling.

But It's about adult children managing their father's decline. The comedy emerges from discomfort, not relief. Heavy.

The Savages poster

A Prairie Home Companion2006

Soderbergh's only musical, a backstage reverie about artists at the end of something. Streep sings, talks, exists beautifully. It's elegiac without being mournful—about loss as a kind of grace.

But The plot is slight, almost ceremonial. If you need narrative momentum, you'll find yourself waiting for something to happen that the film has no interest in providing.

A Prairie Home Companion poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Let Them All Talk

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Tokyo Story1953

Both films are built from small conversations and unspectacular moments between people who know each other. Both understand that wounds don't announce themselves; they live in the space between words.

Ozu's masterpiece about an elderly couple visiting their children and grandchildren in Tokyo. Almost nothing happens; everything matters. It's about time, aging, distance, and how we sustain love across it. Tranquil and devastating.

But The pacing is deliberate to the point of stillness. Western viewers often find it boring until they suddenly don't. Subtitles required.

Tokyo Story poster
More like this (7)

Sideways2004

Two men, a weekend, wine country, and the comfortable friction of old friendship. It finds real pathos in small failures and regrets. Funny and genuinely moving without ever announcing itself as either.

But The central characters aren't especially likeable or evolved by the end. If you need your films to show you moral progress, this one sits in sadness.

Sideways poster

The Devil Wears Prada2006

Streep as a boss who is exactly herself—terrifying, hilarious, and oddly touching. Anne Hathaway learns to navigate a woman's world. It's about power, mentorship, and watching someone command a room.

But It's a fashion-world fairy tale that doesn't interrogate its assumptions much. If you want critique rather than celebration, look elsewhere.

The Devil Wears Prada poster

Shrinking2023

Bill Lawrence's show about a grieving therapist who breaks his own rules. Jason Segel is funny and broken, Harrison Ford is gruff and real. It's character-driven comedy-drama that trusts you to sit with people.

But Earnest about therapy and feelings in ways that sometimes feel like it's teaching. The comedy can drown in sincerity; not every episode finds the balance.

Shrinking poster

BPM (Beats per Minute)2017

A French film about ACT UP in the 1990s—politics, love, rage, and friendship. It's urgent without being didactic. The friendship at its center feels lived-in and complicated and real.

But It's in French with subtitles. It's also about AIDS activism in a way that can be hard; it doesn't soften the loss or the anger.

BPM (Beats per Minute) poster

Transparent2014

Jill Soloway's show about a family reckoning with their parent's transition. Episodic, character-centered, unafraid of digression and silence. It's about the people you think you know suddenly becoming legible.

But Early seasons especially are structurally messy and sometimes indulgent. Patience is required; it rewards you slowly.

Transparent poster

The Farewell2019

Lulu Wang's film about a Chinese family keeping a terminal diagnosis secret from the patient. Comedy and tragedy are woven so tightly you can't separate them. It's about what we hide and why, with real warmth.

But It's culturally specific in ways that might feel opaque if family secrecy isn't familiar to you. The emotional register is understated.

The Farewell poster

The Sopranos1999

Both use therapy or introspection as their narrative engine. Both are interested in aging, in people we know intimately surprising us, in the gap between who we think we are and who we actually are.

Tony Soprano sees a therapist; the show follows both the sessions and the life that makes him need them. It created the template for prestige TV, but more than that—it's about a man trying to change and repeatedly failing, with intelligence and dark comedy.

But Sixty-something hours is a commitment, and the later seasons lose focus. Violence and moral compromise are not redeemed or resolved. The ending divides people violently.

The Sopranos poster

People

Cast

Directing

Writing

Production

Recommended by