by Vanessa Huang
Adapted from Miriam Toews’s novel of the same name and based on a true story, Women Talking is a film that does what it says on the tin. More chilling, though, is why they’re talking: the women, living in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia, have discovered that several men in their community have been routinely drugging and sexually assaulting them. While the men are being held in custody and awaiting bail, the women gather in a hayloft to decide what they must do: nothing, stay and fight, or leave.
Playing some of the central participants in this conversation are Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara, and Claire Foy, while Ben Whishaw’s August is a male schoolteacher acting as scribe among the entirely illiterate group. The film fills its runtime with copious dialogue, feeling almost like it’s been plucked straight from under the proscenium arch of a theatre, and harkening back to the engrossing urgency of 12 Angry Men. Writer and director Sarah Polley forges a rallying cry of a film, deriving its power not from self-congratulatory feminist cosplay but instead a quiet rage – one that comes from a group of women who would hardly identify as feminists, but for whom the weight of male subjugation has simply become too heavy to carry. It’s a welcome dive into the murkier depths of healing from sexual violence – as the deliberation continues, no easy answers seem to emerge – and it certainly makes for a thought-provoking addition to the post-MeToo slate of cinema.
It’s true that the film looks entirely too grey – colour grading hasn’t been this jarring since Magic Mike was the colour of piss – but it’s unfair to lambast the film on the basis of one creative misfire, particularly when it’s powered by a tour de force screenplay and faultless performances from its ensemble cast, who have been shut out from awards conversations for no good reason other than vote-splitting. There’s a particularly unique sense of hope that comes with bearing witness not to a brutal depiction of trauma but a thoughtful examination of its after effects, and Women Talking is just one of a slew of female-directed films this year to fit that description. The film opens by declaring: “What follows is an act of female imagination.” May there be more to come.
