As an actress, Meryl Streep is damn lucky we're in the midst of a pandemic. Few other performers can make that claim but as her career continues to falter, few notice. In fact, some might even think she seems of the times and with it, 'hip' -- to use slang from an earlier era.
NETFLIX's THE PROM crashed and burned upon release earlier this month. The reviews were largely blistering and Meryl's oddity in the film was THE PROM's biggest problem -- after it's misdirected script that turned the main character, a young woman who wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom, into a plot device for promised hilarity delivered by an adult drama crowd -- hilarity that never did ensue. Meryl's performance as a Broadway actress was hollow and laugh-free and she sported the worst hairstyle of her career which is really saying something after her Emo Phillips aspiration when she played the lead in 1988's A CRY IN THE DARK.
Explaining her bizarre hair color and coif, Meryl 'confided' in everyone during the filming that she was basing her over-the-top character on theater diva Patti LuPone. The truth is, Patti would never play a Broadway star in the frumpy -- but brightly colored -- wardrobe Meryl insisted upon wearing. Equally true, Patti grasps that a role as a diva requires pep and energy -- two qualities that Meryl has never been known to deliver.
Meryl Streep exists in a tiny frame, when you think about it. She has no brava performance. Despite all the films she's made, for example, she never delivers. She's never come alive on the screen, she's never given a most-talked-about performance. She's not -- and never has been -- a star. Stars sell tickets. Stars are the stuff of dreams. Dreams? The most Meryl can hope for is someone musing about her -- briefly -- while doing the laundry.
Think about it. In the 20th century, a time when Meryl acted in 27 feature films, she doesn't stand out. Jane Fonda's Academy Award winning performance in KLUTE sets the standard for acting in the 20th century. Other notable performances by actresses that century would include Bette Davis in both ALL ABOUT EVE and THE LETTER, Diane Keaton in LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR, SHOOT THE MOON, REDS and LOVE AND DEATH, Judy Garland in A STAR IS BORN, Barbra Streisand in FUNNY GIRL, UP THE SANDBOX and THE WAY WE WERE, Lily Tomlin in THE LATE SHOW and NASHVILLE, Jessica Lange in FRANCES, TOOTSIE, CRIMES OF THE HEART, MUSIC BOX and SWEET DREAMS, Diana Ross in LADY SINGS THE BLUES, Michelle Pfeiffer in DANGEROUS LIASONS, THE RUSSIA HOUSE, THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS and BATMAN RETURNS, Elizabeth Taylor in WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, Marilyn Monroe in SOME LIKE IT HOT, Katharine Hepburn in MORNING GLORY and PHILADELPHIA STORY, Vivien Leigh in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, Dorothy Dandridge in CARMEN JONES, Joan Crawford in SUDDEN FEAR and MILDRED PIERCE, Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger in TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, Faye Dunaway in NETWORK, BONNIE & CLYDE and, yes, MOMMIE DEAREST -- We could go on and on.
These are career defining performances, these are performances that exceed the promise of film, exceed the expectations of the audience, enrapture us all.
And yet, even if we continued our list for 100 more examples of actresses who delivered on screen -- and we easily could -- we still wouldn't arrive at Meryl Streep.
For all the praise that has been heaped upon her, for all the nominations and awards she's won, there's nothing there. Greer Garson won awards too -- the world has largely forgotten her because her 'noble' and 'genteel' women were hollow -- the same problem with Meryl's performances. Also, like Greer, Meryl's a leading lady but not a star. Greer never sold tickets -- which is why her substandard vehicles failed so quickly. Meryl doesn't sell tickets either. She has no real fan base and never has.
In the 20th century, her live action hits -- or rather 'her' hits -- were OUT OF AFRICA ($87 million -- all totals domestic gross only), DEATH BECOMES HER ($55 million) and, THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY ($71 million) and that's it. We're being kind and counting anything over $50 million. If you want to include the last 20 years, it's even more depressing: THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA ($124 million), MAMA MIA! ($144 million domestic) JULIE & JULIA ($94 million), IT'S COMPLICATED ($112 million), HOPE SPRINGS ($63 million), the ensemble INTO THE WOODS ($128 million) and THE POST ($81 million). A career that has spanned five decades and only ten films qualify as hits. And? She didn't carry one of those films. She's not Goldie Hawn in PRIVATE BENJAMIN or Diane Keaton in BABY BOOM. She's surrounded by co-stars -- Goldie, Bruce Willis, Robert Redford, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hanks, Pierce Brosnan, Amy Adams . . .
More to the point, when co-starring with a genuine star, the star blows Meryl off the screen. That's true of DEATH BECOMES HER where Goldie captures your attention throughout, of THE RIVER WILD where Kevin Bacon steals the picture, of MARVIN'S ROOM where Meryl twitches while Diane Keaton delivers a master class on acting, even in SILKWOOD where the film loses all life once Cher's character fades out for all but the ending.
We were reminded of that yet again when we watched LET THEM ALL TALK. Dianne Weist is a two-time Academy Award winner so we expected -- and weren't disappointed -- her work to be outstanding. She delivers and then some. Meryl is a gentle hum while Dianne is a symphony. Again, no surprise. What did shock us was how Candice Bergen ran with her role. Candice is a solid actress. But stronger than her skills and craft? It's always been star power. Candice, even when she's miscast, even when you don't believe a single acting choice she makes, can fall back on star power -- she draws your attention. And in Steven Soderbergh's LET THEM ALL TALK, she plays the showy role of Roberta -- excuse us, she lives the showy role of Roberta.
She draws you to the character and she reveals what a paper-thin actress Meryl actually is. For film -- we should say. Her hollow husks that pass for characterization in film might seem alive on the stage. Meryl, ask any actress who has ever worked with her in a film, is known for one thing and one thing only: Her ability not to rush. Directors will try to get her to pick up the pace, to deliver her lines a little faster, to do some movement a little quicker, etc. She refuses. Always. And so the camera has to come to her and the film slows down for her. That's allowed many to mistake her for a great actress -- time seems to stand still for Meryl. She's not. A great -- even a good actress -- can adapt and knows how to deliver lines quickly.
Meryl is the tugboat of actresses -- slowly making it downstream. And when she goes against a live wire like Candice Bergen, she looks as passive and pallid as she truly is. Dianne, again, delivers in the film but it belongs to Candice. Her Roberta is the film, the only real reason to watch. While Meryl bores you with her slow and plodding choices, Candice is zipping around and providing you with so much that you really don't take it all in on one viewing. Look at her interaction with a customer determined to argue that teal is not a blue, look at her eyes, look at her body tension, marvel over all that she wrings out of that brief moment -- maybe even wish that they'd skipped the whole ship voyage that Dianne, Candice and Meryl go on to instead stay in that undergarment store with Roberta for the full movie.
Steven Soderbergh is one of our favorite living directors. We've seen all of his films . . . except for one. 2019's THE LAUNDROMAT. In that film, Meryl appears on camera as both herself and two different characters. We weren't in the mood to see Meryl deliver the same three performances while pretending that they were different. They're fussy and all filigree, she works from the outside and it shows. She's never inhabited a character once in her life. She's all external, accents and props.
It got old long, long ago. But it really did end for us in the last decade. There was her staunch defense of the corporate press when she was making and promoting THE POST. Unlike Meryl, we do have an education to fall back on and, as critical thinkers, we're damn well aware that THE WASHINGTON POST and THE NEW YORK TIMES sold the illegal war on Iraq. We're also aware that Meryl did nothing to protest that war -- that ongoing war. She's just another ditsy drama major who never learned a damn thing about the real world.
Actually, she's something far worse. Rose McGowan rightly called Meryl out for protecting predator Harvey Weinstein. Meryl knew. This comment led Meryl to publicly insist that Rose was wrong and that she didn't understand why anyone would say such a thing. Read Ronan Farrow's book. And grasp that Rose knew what happened before Ronan published it. When Ronan was working on the Harvey Weinstein story, he encountered Meryl who made polite conversation up until she found out what he was working on. At that point? At that point, she tried to talk him out of it and pointed to all the 'good work' that Harvey had done.
Meryl knew.
She always knew.
She didn't care. That's typical of Meryl. Her characters are nothing but a study in not caring. There's no care put into her creating them -- shrugs, snorts, swallowed asides to make them seem real -- the same predictable bag of tricks in role after role. Equally true, she reduces every character to the mundane. Her insults of Anjelica Huston are notorious (Meryl hates Anjelica and constantly trashes her) and she pretends they are built around the fact that Anjelica played the lead in THE WITCHES, a role Meryl turned down because she found women as witches to be sexist. Find the role whatever you want, Anjelica brought it to life. Meryl just brings the character down to the level of boredom. Take THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA where she's supposed to play the boss from the hell but Meryl waters it down and claims, yet again, that she did so for feminism. Reality, she waters down the roles because she lacks the skill and temperament to 'act' anything but the mundane. She can't, as THE PROM demonstrates yet again, do larger than life. Equally true, she puts no care into the world of her characters -- she stands off -- makes the camera come to her -- and never actually interacts with the other performers.
Meryl's film career, at least as a leading lady, is finally over. There'll be a few films here and there over the next few years -- maybe a co-starring role or two. But it's over and that's what the pandemic has hidden.
People catch Meryl in the second season of BIG LITTLE LIES, in THE LAUNDROMAT or THE PROM or LET THEM ALL TALK or even the upcoming DON'T LOOK UP and they think, "Streaming! She's riding the cusp! She's on the wave!" No, she's just taking the only roles that are being offered. Her film career -- as a leading lady -- is over. 2017's THE POST was her last leading role in a feature film and, if you're honest, her last real leading role in a studio film is 2012's HOPE SPRINGS -- a film that did make $112 million domestically but also a film that cost $89 million to make before you factor in prints and advertising. Again, the pandemic has been very kind to Meryl. Without it, people would be noting that the film career was over so she was slumming in streaming.