Women Talking (2022)

Thoughtful and moving piece concerning resistance to patriarchy - Women Talking review by PD

'What follows is an act of female imagination,' declares a title card at the beginning of 'Women Talking'. It’s an accurate description of writer-director Sarah Polley’s adaptation of a novel by Miriam Toews, centred on the female members of a Mennonite colony. But those opening words are also a challenge: the women are responding to years of calculated sexual abuse, years in which the male leaders of their sect silenced their complaints by insisting that the horrors they experienced belonged to the realm of demons or the 'wild female imagination.'

At the core of Polley’s intelligent, compassionate film is the belief that in films and in life, words can be action, particularly for those hitherto denied a voice. The philosophical and often faith-steeped bent of the women’s discussion might put off some, but this thoughtful and beautifully shot film is a rewarding exploration that addresses both the characters’ predicament and the existential questions that face any contemporary woman navigating oppressive patriarchies. Toews’ 2019 novel was inspired by events in a Mennonite community in Bolivia, where for years women were drugged and raped while they slept by a group of men in their colony, the book revolving around the women’s deliberations after they learned the truth about their assaults. Their discussion was filtered through the voice of the one man they still trusted, schoolteacher August, enlisted to take the minutes of their meetings because none of them had been taught to read or write. In Polley’s interpretation, August, played by Ben Whishaw, is a key character, but the women’s voices drive the story without intermediary.

Given a couple of days to forgive the men who have been arrested for the rapes — or be excommunicated from the colony and therefore denied a place in heaven — the women vote on three possible responses: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. These are arguably the options for how to address any life crisis, but for people who have lived such sheltered lives, the vote is an extraordinary undertaking, and soon beliefs and temperaments clash among the women, representing three generations. The youngest of these, Autje, delivers a judiciously used voiceover narration, indicating a future beyond this flash point, whilst the thoughtful, beatific Ona (beautifully played by Rooney Mara), who’s pregnant as the result of her assault, beams with equanimity and idealism. Meanwhile, Autje’s mother, Mariche (Jessie Buckley - outstanding), lashes out at nearly everyone with a fierce belligerence that’s laced with unspoken vulnerability. By contrast, Salome (Claire Foy), expresses a less conflicted rage than Mariche’s, giving the character’s maternal instincts and awareness of injustice a formidable power, and the two oldest women in the group, Agata and Greta, are figures of unfussy wisdom played to perfection by Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy. Via these voices and others, Polley also asks us to consider how innocent children grow up to be the kind of men who hold women back and sometimes brutalise them: Frances McDormand (a producer of the film), onscreen briefly as someone who can’t imagine leaving the community, suggests an untold story in the apparent knife-blade scars on her cheek - the way women’s acceptance of abuse is passed from one generation to the next is delicately addressed throughout.

There's a fair few weaknesses: it does feel rather artificially 'stagey' at times, and an intrusive score including terrible syrupy strings doesn't help at all - so much better (of course) just to let the writing and visuals do the work (although an incongruous blast of 'Daydream Believer' does work well). But on the whole this is an ambitious, thoughtful and moving piece.