Let Them All Talk (2020) review

"Famous author" Alice (Meryl Streep) is supposed to receive an award in England but she says she can't fly, so with two college friends (Candice Bergen and Dianne Wiest) and her nephew Tyler (Lucas Hedges) she takes the Queen Mary 2 from Brooklyn to get there ... except her publishing house sends someone (Gemma Chan) to follow her and try to find out what her next book is going to be about.  Soderbergh, not content with just directing and working as cinematographer (using the alias Peter Andrews) now thinks he should be editor too (as Mary Ann Bernard), and yet that's another job he's ill-suited for: the dialogue is clearly improvised and the scenes are shapeless and intolerably dull, as the insufferable characters bicker with each other over past grievances and Alice-the-highbrow takes issue with populist author Kelvin Kranz (Daniel Algrant) being on the same cruise ship (and planet) as her.  As for the lame ending: just when I couldn't expect less, he kicks me in the jaw.