An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Steven Soderbergh  and since it was available on HBO Max, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, unfortunately, as usual with this director, sure, there were a couple of decent ideas but, to be honest, the end-result was rather half-baked after all. Indeed, I didn’t care much about the story and in my opinion, the characters were all rather pathetic. One example would be Tyler who had such a hopeless crush on Karen. To be honest, I didn’t even acknowledge the fact that she was much older (I guess I don’t really care about such things since my ex-wife was much older and I’m currently involved with a much younger woman) but it was so obvious that she would never be interested in him and to see him entertain this idea made him look like an idiot, to be honest. Fortunately, instead of having these old friends reuniting during this cruise and have a great time together after all these years, Soderbergh went for a really different approach which was more interesting, even if it was never really fascinating. Furthermore, once again, as usual with Soderbergh, the directing was really solid though. Indeed, for a movie with barely a plot and hardly anything going on, it was neat how much he managed to get from this material. Finally, he had such a strong cast involved (Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Lucas Hedges, Gemma Chan), especially Streep. I have seen most of her movies so I don’t get to see her so often in something new but she once again really impressed me. I mean, the way she once again completely disappeared in this character was just uncanny and, as far as I was concerned, she remains the best actress ever. It’s too bad that the movie and/or the story was not of the level of her performance. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I have to admit that it was still a decent watch and it is worth  a look, especially if you are interested in Steven Soderbergh’s work. 

6/10