The Laundromat

Show Transcript

00:00:04.65
Speaker
In 2019, Steven Soderbergh made not one, but two movies for Netflix. The first one, High Flying Bird, came out in February and was the subject of last week's episode. Now it's time to set our watches ahead to October and the release of The Laundromat.

00:00:21.82
Speaker
Oh, actually, I don't want to be the but actually guy, but actually, I think you mean September here, because this one didn't go straight to streaming. ah It premiered at the Venice Film Festival, then went to the Toronto International Film Festival, then went to San Sebastian Film Festival.

00:00:40.58
Speaker
And I believe it had theatrical release, a small theatrical release. So Soderbergh, given his run of recent ah ah streaming releases is kind of breaking new ground is, you know, what's old is to do again or something. I don't know.

00:00:56.84
Speaker
hu Is Netflix going Soderbergh or is Soderbergh going Netflix? We'll get to the bottom of it in this episode of the Filmographers Podcast, where we study a director's entire career, one film at a time. I'm Kier Graf. And I'm Michael Maurici.

00:01:12.65
Speaker
In our first season, we're turning the spotlight on Steven Soderbergh, one of Hollywood's most versatile and fascinating directors. Episode by episode, we discuss why each of his films succeeded or failed, always looking at them in the context of the Hollywood landscape at the time they were released. This is the 30th full length film we've covered so far. But don't worry, there's plenty of Soderbergh to come. Mike, please kick us off with your one sentence summary of The Laundromat.

00:01:38.53
Speaker
When a mild wave capsizes a boat and tragically kills a woman's husband and her insurer's claim is denied because the policy was sold to a shell company, there's no measure she won't take to uncover a wild and true money laundering scandal. First you must ask yourself, are you wealthy? Super truth of the world is that most games, for someone to win, well, someone has to lose.

00:02:17.05
Speaker
a Think of this as fairy tale that actually happened. There's confusion over who has to pay. So they drowned you and plenty of other innocent people and somebody's making money from it. No, it goes back to this law firm, Mosak Fonseca. So what happens next? What do we do next?

00:02:41.73
Speaker
All I did was try and send money. It's a scam that goes from Houston to the West Indies to some bank who knows where. They're getting away with murder. Which is bad. Bed? Bed is such a big word for being such a small word.

00:03:05.23
Speaker
How does it all work? Bribery, corruption, money laundering. Millions and millions and millions of dollars. Somebody has to sound the alarm.

00:03:17.39
Speaker
Shit. Shut up! Let's... Who the fuck is my money? Most of the time. We don't even know.

00:03:34.66
Speaker
What did you know about the Panama Papers before watching this film? Uh, not much. I, I, I guess I assumed they were like unpublished David Lee Roth lyrics that Sammy Hagar, you know, during his campaign to become a Van Halen's newly singer leaked out to the public. That's, that sounds plausible. That sounds plausible. Now I remember following the news, uh, about the Panama papers, but you know, six months later, I think all I could have come up with if you would ask me was something like rich people were hiding money and they got caught.

00:04:06.81
Speaker
You know, sometimes all you need is a headline. Or a movie that will explain a complex story in a way we can all understand while we're eating our popcorn. Or that. Although, you know, I'm going to be honest, having watched this movie twice now, I'm still not sure I totally understand it, um which is probably keep my why I keep my money tucked beneath my mattress.

00:04:29.03
Speaker
You're a true south side. That's true. I don't trust anyone. yeah studio bank We'll definitely get into the ins and outs of how the laundromat presented this scandal and maybe even introduce you to my financial advice.

00:04:44.24
Speaker
but But first, some quick background. In 2016, someone calling himself John Doe leaked a massive amount of information, 11 and a half million documents amounting to 2.6 terabytes of data to a German newspaper. These documents came from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that provided corporate services relating primarily to shell corporations registered in tax havens like, oh, let's just say Nevis, a small island in the Caribbean.

00:05:14.03
Speaker
Shell corporations being companies that exist primarily on paper so people can avoid paying taxes in the countries where they actually extract resources, do businesses, do business and employ people. Exactly. And the sad part of it is that tax havens and some US states are the most permissive tax havens of all are largely legal. Avoiding taxes on large sums of money is unfair and hurts local economies, but it can be legal.

00:05:42.96
Speaker
And although the Panama Papers leaker appears to have been largely motivated by exposing income inequality, the leaks did help reporters discover that many of these shell corporations were being used illegally. For example, to launder money, evade taxes, commit fraud, and skirt international sanctions. World leaders were also implicated in shady doings, most notably the prime ministers of England and Iceland.

00:06:08.33
Speaker
and hundreds of public figures, celebrities, and high-net-worth individuals were exposed. For many of them, it was nothing more than an embarrassing episode. The Panama Papers and the reporting from over 100 media outlets that helped make sense of them turned a bright spotlight on the ways rich people get richer while hiding their money. ah Hearing you say that, it's just, man, vast and crazy that like it's so big and so many different people that were involved at so many different levels and so many...

00:06:40.77
Speaker
And it's not just one shady thing that's happening. There's just like these like a shelf companies. That's like these Russian nesting dolls. There's all these reasons for you know fraud, taxes, i just hiding illegally gained money. like There's just so many ways and reasons these monies are getting in. it's just it's the The scope of it is crazy. But thankfully, I'm certain Keir, everyone involved was punished accordingly. It had to be.

00:07:12.88
Speaker
Well, it's complicated. Many did face legal consequences. ah Some people were arrested and countries did recover some of the tax money owed to them. Mossack Fonseca was shut down and its founders, Jurgen Mossack and Rimon Fonseca, were briefly jailed and then put on trial. But Panama, perhaps embarrassed by the fact that the whole scandal was named after them, seemed eager to move on. After a long trial, all Mossack Fonseca employees were acquitted in June of this year. So very contemporary story. And remember, they were only one of many firms helping many entities still secret hide their money in many other offshore entities. The only person who can make sense of this and cut through the noise. This is a job for our man for Steven sober. Get me extension 765.

00:08:20.56
Speaker
In the video for that song, Mike, David Lee Roth is being led away in handcuffs. Van Halen predicted this whole thing. You know, ah the lyrics in that song, there is a ah bit, it says model, citizen, zero discipline. So, which is now a whole new context. It's going to haunt me now. I love Panama. I love Van Halen. I unironically really enjoy Van Halen. I unironically also enjoy Van Halen, but I'm not a Van Hagar guy.

00:08:47.24
Speaker
No. Diamond Dave. Diamond Dave all the way. Oh, easy. Yeah. No, Sammy was too serious. I mean, he turned, he's he's fun now, but he was too serious at the time. Yeah, absolutely. David Lee Roth would never sing right now.

00:09:03.94
Speaker
Another entity caught up in the Panama Papers, the estate of Stanley Kubrick. Most of his wealth was tied up in his home in England called Chilwickbury Manor. And as an American expat in England, when he died, the place would probably have been sold to cover his tax debt to the English government, if not for the holding companies and trusts administered by Mossack Fonseca that allow his family to still live there.

00:09:29.77
Speaker
How do we feel about that, Mike? my

00:09:34.42
Speaker
Where's the outrage? Where's the outrage? I mean, I guess I should. I guess I should feel outraged about it. I mean, look, here's the thing. We all know that Kubrick, we all know him as like the authoritarian, controlling, perfectionist director. But is somebody like you, I'm sure you know this as well, who have like maybe not studied Kubrick, but have been around film enough to know that in addition to being a controlling authoritarian director, he was also a ruthlessly pragmatic guy. So him protecting his money and his estate and family just through sheer satanic calculus, like having no morals or no sentiment attached.

00:10:21.76
Speaker
makes a lot of sense to me, actually. Fair, fair. Plus, plus ah one of his daughters is buried on the estate ground. So probably just I know it's probably just best just to let the Kubrick's remain, you know, remain remains. Yes, yes, I got you there. yeah yeah Yeah, you don't want to remove remains. That's like the whole, ah you know, then you've got poltergeist scenario possibly for the next tenants of Chilled with Green Manor. Interestingly, Pedro Almodovar, Jackie Chan, and Emma Watson were also named, but it's hard for me to think of them as the bad guys here. yeah um Well, i was because I was going to say, you know not Jackie Chan, because i I love Jackie Chan, even though he's kind of guess some got some dicey skeletons going on in his life. But Emma Watson, she's always you know the person like such a ah

00:11:15.42
Speaker
a driven person, driven by causes and doing good in the world. And here she is, hiding her money, just like the rest. Yeah, so maybe Jackie Chan, somewhat expected Emma Watson, not Emma Watson. Not Emma Watson, yeah. I mean, not the guy from Police Story 3. Which rules? Like on the police story 3 rules.

00:11:37.46
Speaker
I do have a harder time getting upset about creatives and maybe it's just a double standard on my part. But in some ways, I just feel like it's nice that a director like Elmodovar has enough money that he has to hide it, right? Like all artists should be so lucky. Usually the artists are not the ones that end up with a pile of cash.

00:11:53.77
Speaker
Anyway, it's easy to see why Soderbergh was attracted to this project. you know He's not one of those celebs who goes around making self-important speeches, drawing attention to his politics, or making videos of himself singing Imagine in his mansion, but he is obviously on the side of the little guy. A movie about the Panama Papers fits squarely in the tradition of Aaron Brockovich, traffic, and the informant.

00:12:16.89
Speaker
Yeah, and like even like even in their own way fits in with out of sight and magic Mike and high flying bird, you know, like Soderbergh, you know, we've cataloged this and talked about this, but he has blue collar roots.

00:12:30.24
Speaker
And he's never really forgotten them. And he he displays them in so many ways in his work ethic and the subject matters he tackles and the way you know his love for underdogs, et cetera. you know like And like you said, he is firmly on the side, you know ah this important point of the little guy. you know He loves outsiders.

00:12:48.73
Speaker
and i I don't know what he enjoys more is like seeing his underdogs like an Aaron Brockovich, you know, ah Jack Foley, whoever, seeing them succeed or making sure that the evil corporations and other high powered figures ah get their get their comeuppance. Why not both, Mike? Why not both? Why not?

00:13:06.94
Speaker
Why not? but Yeah. and because ah Along those lines, even Logan Lucky fits, right? and Yeah. you know I'll draw the line to Oceans 11 because it's hard to see Danny and Rusty as class warriors. but ah Prequel. Oh, yeah. When they robbed the factory and they're dying Rust Belt Town.

00:13:25.31
Speaker
but say she about um let me get my notebook let's Let's workshop that. Now, I'm just going to skim the production backstory on this one because big question i want to you know because I have a big question I want to ask you after we both give our reviews and I think sometimes I've been going a little little deep on backstory in some of the movies we've been talking about lately.

00:13:46.41
Speaker
Oh, I love it. so Yes. Yes. so So hopefully, we'll see. I might be making a promise I can't deliver. Now, the Panama Papers leaks began in April 2016.

00:14:00.85
Speaker
ah That same month United Talent Agency started shopping the rights to secrecy world a book about the leaks by Pulitzer winner Jake Bernstein that wouldn't come out until November 2017 and for people who don't know the publishing industry like how is this possible? How are you selling a book that doesn't exist this happens?

00:14:19.14
Speaker
fairly often, particularly if you have, i general not generally with novels, but generally with nonfiction. If you've got a a writer who's an expert on a subject, there's a big breaking news thing. Maybe they've already done a lot of reporting on it, you know and they've got a track record of publication. You know they can deliver a book. They're a journalist, so you know they can deliver it quickly. People will whip up a book proposal in a week and shop it, and anyway, presto change-o.

00:14:45.84
Speaker
so ah the The idea is that the book is going to come out 18 months, give or take, after the leaks, which is in in publishing, we call that crashing a book. um That's pretty short turnaround to write and publish a book, but it's certainly doable. So Grey Matter Productions bought the screenwrites and in July 2016, three months after after the the leaks, it was announced that Soderberg would come on as one of the producers and possibly direct. It wasn't a

00:15:18.24
Speaker
given, because he sometimes produces movies other people direct, and that Scott Z. Burns would be writing the script. Right. And Burns, of course, we we friend of friend of the show, he also wrote Contagion, The Informant, and Side Effects. I actually have a question for you. Now, I think about it. was a He might not remember. was the informant also That was a book. Was that sold before as well? Do you remember?

00:15:43.35
Speaker
Oh, that's a good question. It was definitely a book. um i I don't know. Part of me thinks we talked about that, but I don't know. make We might not have. But I do remember it being a book at the very least. I'm right on that count, right?

00:15:58.26
Speaker
Yes, it was a book um by Kurt Eichenwald. Oh, that's right. nows i don't think it was I think it was published and then made, I'm pretty sure. Yes, I remember the Eichenwalde thing. remember them Yes, because they were using the book as reference and the book was massive and they had to chop it up. ah The book was published in 2000 and the informant came out in 2009. Definitely a different timeline, but similar in that ah You know, a big expose a nonfiction book was the source material. OK, yeah. OK, cool. Thanks. Soderbergh was still filming Logan Lucky at the time, but we know he likes to fill out his dance card long in advance. In April 2018, with Logan Lucky, Unsane and the TV show Mosaic all recently released and High Flying Bird in the can, but not released, Soderbergh was finally announced as the director of the still untitled movie about the Panama Papers starting in fall.

00:16:56.81
Speaker
But at least the book had been published. In May, Meryl Streep was announced as the star, and the cast started to come together with Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas as Mossack and Fonseca. Before it was all over, the cast would include James Cromwell, Robert Patrick, David Schwimmer, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Matthias Schoenertz, Melissa Rauch, and even Will Forte, Chris Parnell, and Larry Wilmore. Yeah.

00:17:23.34
Speaker
They had great roles, Forte and Pardell. But yeah, you add it all together and it's a regular Oceans 13, right? Oceans 13, I think we have there. Soderbergh's 13. Soderbergh's 13, yes. Yeah, you know Soderbergh is becoming like Woody Allen used to be, where every director wants to work with him at least once in their career. And in every other way, not like Woody Allen. Thank God.

00:17:48.54
Speaker
In a July interview with Filmmaker magazine promoting the criterion release of Sex Lives and Videotape, Soderbergh said the film would probably go to Netflix. And indeed in October, it was announced that Netflix would finance and release the movie. Shooting started and ah on October 15th and continued for nearly two months with filming locations in Miami, Key West, and various parts of California, Nevada, and a green screen, which came in handy for the showy one-er that opens the movie.

00:18:16.46
Speaker
You don't give yourself enough credit to sink to the point. Got the information out there. Good job. I'm impressed. Well done. Why thank you, Mike. Yeah, it's that kind of thoughtful attention to detail that is the hallmark of the Filmographers podcast. Oh, wait, are we going to commercial now? No, no, no, not a commercial, just a helpful announcement that it's now easier than ever to show your support for the Filmographers podcast. Yes, as always, you can take a quick moment to subscribe, like or rate the show on your preferred preferred platform, but now

00:18:50.54
Speaker
you can give us a review in seconds. Does this involve AI? As a working writer, I cannot condone the use of AI for any creative endeavor. It does not, no, not at all. So listeners simply go to our show notes where you'll find some sample reviews, pick your favorite, copy it and paste it into the Review of the Phonographers podcast. Kidding, sort of what you can do is just customize how you want, but you sure don't have to. Just remember that reviews and other engagement are essential.

00:19:18.89
Speaker
to us helping ah find other people who like what we're doing and expand our audience. So just that little just a little snippet, a little review, a little rating. It's truly, truly remarkably helpful. Pre-written reviews. What a great idea. I wish I had thought of that.

00:19:34.99
Speaker
You took the words right out of my mouth here. well scott Scott and I very early on decided that humor was the best vehicle to get some of these ideas across. um and when we started When Scott suggested that we take a sort of kaleidoscopic approach and globe hop to follow these stories. um I felt we we had the opportunity to keep the the viewer um engaged and entertained. I knew it was going to move quickly. I knew it would have a very poppy feel to it. And in fact, in multiple stages in the movie, the characters themselves, mostly Gary and Antonio,

00:20:20.87
Speaker
make jokes about how complicated all of these transactions are and and basically make the audience feel okay with being completely confused by what's going on. um But it was it was challenging because there are so many stories.

00:20:39.60
Speaker
to choose from. I was telling Meryl today, Jake Bernstein made a document in which he took 30 countries and and outlined stories from those countries that we might be interested in. And we picked from that list. But you could make this movie every year for 15 years and never run out of stories. Mike, what did you think of the laundromat? Did you like the way Soderbergh chose to dramatize the story and convey all that complicated information?

00:21:07.97
Speaker
Well, it's hard to say like information of this scope is it's just really hard to convey and it's really hard to digest from from a viewer standpoint, you know, but what makes it easier, what makes it better, all this big ideas and this massive story, like you said, like we talked about, like in your um background of it, like how big it was and how vast it was and how multifaceted it was.

00:21:38.37
Speaker
getting that stuff to narrow, narrow, narrow, narrow, like squeezing that watermelon through a picket fence, you know, like you just need to find the right picket. And the picket is like, you know, is the narrative is is the story that you're telling around it. And I don't know that the laundromat had a great story, at least a story that I love. I mean, I'm going to backtrack a little bit like the narrative to me, the way that the laundromat is crafted in my opinion, is inherently flawed because in order to make all this stuff work, because I think this is bigger than, say, the informant. The informant had like one guy who was doing all this crazy shit. You look at Mark Whitaker and you're like, oh, my God, he did this and he did that. But it's all singularly focused on him where the laundromat had so many different players. I mean, didn't even when you're talking about the Panama Papers, this didn't even scratch the surface, you know, realistically, but like

00:22:38.29
Speaker
It still had in the movie, like we said, the Oceans 13. There's so many, I mean, granted. Will Forte and Chris Parnell like showed up for 30 seconds you know just to get buried in the desert. and it was It was a great funny scene. That's part of the movie. That's part of the movie, yeah. It was it was hilarious. I love Will Forte especially. But like there's so many, it's still a very big movie um where you have to, there's just so many rotating POVs and so many different things happening. Like, essentially, Meryl Streep was a star, but there's a lot of other stuff going on. so

00:23:13.91
Speaker
In order to make all this stuff work, you know to convey this really complicated a game of shell companies and offshore accounts and all this kind of stuff, you just have to come out and say what it is. you know like That's really the only way to make, I think, the story, make any of it work. And they do that with Oldman and Banderas who just come out and say what exactly is going on in those interstitials who And to me, those that I'll be honest, that was the best part of the movie. You know, they're the real best part of the movie. Yeah, they are the real best part of the movie. They're so much fun. I mean, granted, they are just info dumping. They're doing it in a creative way and a clever way, but they're just literally, you know, we showed hotels out the window. They're just telling you. And I think that's a necessity of the stories. You need ah this kind of Greek chorus, this this this.

00:24:03.24
Speaker
present merrier who's just telling you all the events that's going on between the events you know making sense of it but now with them coming out and telling now that we know and maybe this is just a luxury of time like We all kind of know the idea of shell companies and the wealthy hiding their money in offshore accounts. like I know the Panama Papers was a huge thing because it was so vast, because the whistle was blown. It gave specificity to this idea that we already know. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, the wealthy just put their money in accounts in Sweden and Panama and blah, blah, blah, all these other places. And they're they're they're constantly hiding their cash and avoiding taxes and things like that. We all kind of knew that. but like

00:24:46.72
Speaker
It feels like it sucks the wind out of you know Meryl Streep's investigation, which is the heart of the narrative. It's like her trying to find out why she's not getting any settlement from the boating company that her husband died on. um you you You kind of just know. We know where Meryl Streep's character is ultimately headed. And if I can jump in, that's such a great point. like you know the The definition of like a mystery, say, in fiction is um something where yeah know something happened and you don't know how it happened or who did it.

00:25:24.94
Speaker
and And so the the story is a quest to discover that a thriller is typically like, you know, something bad will happen if steps aren't taken to prevent that. And we don't really have either of those here. Right. Right. The thing has already happened and we're being told from the start what has happened and who did it more or less. So it it does suck a lot of the drama right out of the story.

00:25:49.89
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's I think, you know, good reference, you know, thing to frame that is Hitchcock's ah suspense versus horror, you know, like suspense, ah you know, there's a bomb under under the table that blows up and it kills two people. Like horror is you don't know that there's a bomb under the table and something just explodes and kills two people. ah Suspense is that, you know, the bombs under the table and you just don't know when or if it'll explode. It's a suspense versus horror. Is that what it is? I think he says like terror, terror. Yeah, I think he says horror.

00:26:21.05
Speaker
something like that. yeah well yeah yeah But it's about knowing or not knowing and how and this doesn't really have either. you know And I don't think it's necessarily trying to be, but it's about narrative drive, really. Because like you like you said, I think you said it better than me, it's like it just comes out and says it, so now we know. So what is what is Meryl Streep's ultimate journey? Like Mark Whitaker,

00:26:45.13
Speaker
For example, this is such a it's it's a the Informa is such a perfect movie to contrast this against because it's you know very similar in tone, very similar in style, same writers, same director. There's so many similarities in overlap. like You don't know until the end just how like bonkers Mark Whitaker is. On first viewing, you're like,

00:27:07.02
Speaker
You don't know that he's made up these people. You're not really sure. He says so many different things. What's true? You still don't really know at the end, like what's true and what's not, because he weaves this web of lies and nonsense that just pile and pile and pile on this kind of point. But like you don't until like the rug really gets pulled out at the end, like you don't know the depths of Mark Whitaker's like game he's playing. And he doesn't even really know the game he's playing, I don't think. um But like in here, like you know, the game, you know, that's being played. They're always explaining it one step ahead of of the game itself, you know, like so. And when when Meryl Streep goes to um I forget the islands calls to see Jeffrey Wright, Nevis Nevis. We already know which Jeffrey he the movies are a shown Jeffrey Wright and shows that he just sits in office and sign stuff and doesn't do anything. And he's the shell thing. So by the time you get to a point and she bumps into him and then he goes, you know, leaves the country and fleas like

00:28:04.41
Speaker
You already knew, you already know what he's done and what he is. And there's a great reveal about his character, but it doesn't have anything to do with her storyline. Oh, that he has, yeah, that he has a second family. That he has a second family. And it's funny, but it's like, and she witnesses that, but it has nothing to do with her character. No, nothing. No. And there's a lot of stuff like that, that like, that is totally removed from her character.

00:28:24.08
Speaker
the the lens it like zooms in and zooms out and then zooms further out and goes in. It's just like it's kind of all over the place. is Is this Soderbergh's Altman movie? It's a little bit of an Altman movie. You know, it's funny because we'll talk about that a little bit next week too because he goes like a very imp impro improvisational ah route with Let Them All Talk. So it feels like maybe he is having a little Altman stage in his career. um But look, it's It's a kind of fun movie, like any silver brick movie like this, it's light on its feet. Informant, Logan Lucky, stuff like that. We've already mentioned these type of movies. It's light on its feet, but the narrative lacks a kind of sting and more importantly, it lacks a, I'll be honest, and this is, I don't know, I don't know how people will kind of roll with this or how you will care.

00:29:15.67
Speaker
It lacks a strong, compelling and likable central character. Like, I'm sorry for Mike's hot takes. We got to have ah some sort of like announcement beginning, like with that kind of like flames, explosions.

00:29:36.22
Speaker
um Look, it takes me a lot to invest in Meryl Streep. I'm not. I'm not the biggest Meryl Streep friend fan and her performance here is just so grating. like so o Nails on a chalkboard. like She plays Ellen, you know a simple old salt of the earth who gets screwed by you know unfathomable powers. with such She plays it with such such simpleness that it's just kind of insulting. like i think she wants to She wants to think that she understands your good old average Joe, but she makes Ellen so average and so daft, and it just comes off as caricature. Her constant like, oh, it so I just, golly gee, I just don't, what's going on here? Like, it's just like, ugh, ugh, stop. Like, I just, it's like you look at how Damon played Mark Whitaker, how Julia Roberts was Aaron Brockovich. They like breathed life into these roles and they made them big, it still feel authentic.

00:30:33.29
Speaker
all Streep does in this and this portrayal of this like salt of the ah earth type person, this average working whoever is absolutely patronized, the the the person the type of person she's playing. And it annoyed me cover to cover, end to end. um And since we're here, let's just go. Let's go. Where are we going now? my hot Round two, The Sequeler.

00:31:04.64
Speaker
Since we are here, what makes matters worse, what really exposed this street for, I think, who she really is, is a moment that is the absolute worst moment of all Silverberg's movies. And that is not hyperbole. It's not.

00:31:20.93
Speaker
i it's It's the ending, isn't it? It sure howll it's sure as hell is. like Meryl Streep literally preaching at viewers. i I don't even know where to begin. It is insufferable to me. It's it's all the things that Erk might dislike for Streep. all It just rolled into an intolerable and completely unnecessary scene. I will never I will never understand why Silverberg even agreed to film it, and much less as the editor of the movie kept it in.

00:31:54.65
Speaker
my I can only hope that this is contractually, a contractual obligation. Like he he had to do this as Meryl Streep's, you know, she's like, I'm going to come out and I'm going to tell the plebs, you know, what's how they're getting screwed. um I don't know if that's the case, but God, I hope so, ah because it's the biggest stumble, fumble, bumble in all of Silverberg's filmography. I don't believe it exists. ah So, Keira, what about you?

00:32:25.19
Speaker
ah How did you like the movie? ah We don't have to talk about the ending in particular. We could. I'm happy to go on. ah But I'm super I've never really been gone full negative on this podcast. Neither one of us has we been very respectful and mindful. And I feel like kept our I threw our integrity out the window in the last two minutes here.

00:32:49.08
Speaker
we We're the film nice guys, and and like you've just destroyed our image as the film nice guys with your hot take. I ruined it. Well, that ending made me stream the tears of happiness that I wiped away with my NPR tote. No, I'm just kidding.

00:33:08.82
Speaker
um I didn't hate it or her as much as you did. um But i I agree. It's it's funny. like I think that the but you make really excellent points about the broadness of her performance in general. I do think she's ah yeah she's obviously a very talented actor. um She does show excellent range. I like her a lot more in the film we're going to discuss next week. Let them all talk. I think she's perfect in that pitch perfect here i agree like she's leaning into the dumb hats and the latent t-shirts and again it's hard to say which choices are you know it's an improv you know soderberg welcomes um input and improvisation from a lot of people so it's it's really hard to know and this is something we could go down a rabbit hole on it's like you know who

00:33:58.40
Speaker
You know, I think typically the blame has to lie at the director's feet. So if if he if that scene is in the movie, we can't blame st Street for it. I think we got to blame Soderbergh. Yeah. yeah

00:34:12.09
Speaker
Now you're clutching your NPR too. Yeah, I think we've got to lay the blame on his face. We were... Hi. I think that, you know, like in interviews he was giving around the time of this movie to