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WOMEN TALKING
Director: Sarah Polley Cast: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, Judith Ivey, Shelia McCarthy, Frances McDormand, Liv McNeil, Emily Mitchell, Kira Guloien, Shayla Brown, August Winter MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:44 Release Date: 12/23/22 (limited); 1/6/22 (wide) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 22, 2022 One thing's for sure about Women Talking: The title is completely accurate. This story is set almost exclusively at an extended meeting among some of the women within an isolated religious community. The perpetrators of a series of attacks on the women and girls of this community have been uncovered, and now, there's the matter of what is to be done in the aftermath. Co-writer/director Sarah Polley throws us right into the midst of this debate, based loosely on the experiences of a real-life Mennonite community in Bolivia and primarily on co-screenwriter Miriam Toews' 2018 novel. The back story arrives quickly and at the start, as a young narrator both hints at the horrors that have occurred for an unspecified number of years and suggests that the survivors' story will result in at least some promising ending. With those minimal details in place, the movie presents a day's worth of discussion and argumentation about society, faith, forgiveness, vengeance, the nature of men and women, and, of course, whether these women will stay and fight for some control over their collective destiny or set out into the unknown world to find a new destiny for themselves. The idea is sound, admirable, and filled with promise, especially considering the cast Polley has assembled for this nearly 100-minute exercise in thoughtful conversation. The main question is whether or not the movie functions as much as drama as it does a way to bluntly explore ideas. It does, especially when these characters come to a major disagreement about one topic or another that could have a very real-world effect on their futures and those of others. Fundamentally, the movie doesn't quite convince as a piece of drama, if only because so much of this talk become circular, so much of the attempts at tension feel a bit contrived, and the stakes on either end of the meeting—what happened before it and what will happen after—aren't established well enough for the lengthy discussion to seem as vital to us as it does to these characters. What we learn from Autje (Kate Hallett), a daughter in one of the three families who are ultimately tasked to decide the immediate fate of the community's women, is that a group of men in the community have been drugging women with animal tranquilizers and raping them. While the male leaders of the religious group have dismissed the accusations as "fantasy" or the work of some demonic presence, one of the attackers was caught recently and provided the names of his cohorts. After Salome (Claire Foy) went after one of the accused with scythe, the rest of the men decided to bring the detained men into the city and to the police—mainly for the assailants' protection. Shortly after, the women were given an ultimatum: Forgive their attackers, or be banished from the community. They have two days—the amount of time it will take the men to go back to the city, pay bail for the accused, and return home—to decide which it will be. After a vote on the issue is inconclusive (The notion of forgiving the criminals loses outright, though), an angry Salome, a pregnant Ona and considerate (Rooney Mara), and a bitter Mariche (Jessie Buckley), as well as their mothers and sisters and daughters, are elected to determine whether the women will fight the men or pack up and leave the community. Because girls and women are refused an education by the patriarchal leadership, schoolteacher August (Ben Whishaw), who loves Ona and whose own mother was banished for having ideas that went against the rules, volunteers to keep the minutes of the meeting. Most of this unfolds in the upper level of a barn, where cinematographer Luc Montpellier drains most of the color from the background surroundings and the actors, offering some slightly richer hues as children play in the field below, the sun sets in the backdrop, and the group begins to arrive at some decision. While the dimness and paleness of the movie's look does it no favors, it's not much of a diminishment, either. After all, the point is to listen to these women, as they debate what to do, if fighting or leaving is in line with their religious convictions, and who is really to blame for the crimes that were committed against them and others. A good amount of this is considered, thoughtful, and occasionally thorny, particularly when Ona suggests that the attackers are, in a certain way, as much victims of this oppressive system as the women are. For every tricky matter of philosophy and sociology, though, the movie offers at least one occasion of characters repeating things that already have been said before or of theological matters that the screenplay doesn't bother to establish. Regardless, the movie is engaging to a certain extent, mostly because of the performances, which create a distinct and diverse collection of personalities and ways of thinking that help to compensate when the script becomes stuck in a loop of its own design. Even if the debates and discussions happening here do occasionally extend to the world beyond this community's secluded borders, Women Talking is also confined to the trials, concerns, and perils of this specific place and these specific people. That limited scope hinders a lot of the movie's dramatic and intellectual potential. Copyright © 2022 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for mature thematic content including sexual assault, bloody images,
and some strong language)
