# Turns out Meryl Streep \*can't\* play anything

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turns-out-meryl-streep-cant-play-anything/602757>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 13, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turns-out-meryl-streep-cant-play-anything/602757 "2011-11-13T02:41:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2011, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turns-out-meryl-streep-cant-play-anything/602757/1 "2011-11-13T02:41:20Z")

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Just watched _Prime_, in which she plays an Upper West Side shrink whose 23-year-old son takes up with one of her patients, the 37-year-old Uma Thurman.

I like Meryl Streep just fine, but she was fucking awful as a Manhattan Jewish mother.

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**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turns-out-meryl-streep-cant-play-anything/602757/2 "2011-11-16T15:39:04Z")

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Do you mean that it turns out that she can’t play _everything_?

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**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\
**Post date:** [November 16, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turns-out-meryl-streep-cant-play-anything/602757/3 "2011-11-16T15:52:15Z")

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> [@twickster](#):
>
> Just watched _Prime_, in which she plays an Upper West Side shrink whose 23-year-old son takes up with one of her patients, the 37-year-old Uma Thurman.
> 
> I like Meryl Streep just fine, but she was fucking awful as a Manhattan Jewish mother.

For what it’s worth, Ebert wrote that _“I must recommend it, because in its comedy of errors are actors who bring truth at least to their dialogue. Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman have line readings that work as delicate and precise adjustments of dangerous situations. They’re dealing with issues that are real enough, even if they’ve been brought about by contrivance. And Streep has that ability to cut through the solemnity of a scene with a zinger that reveals how all human effort is, after all, comic at some level.”_