Women Talking (Subtitled) (15)

Women of an isolated Mennonite community wake with bruises and a nagging feeling that they have been violated as they slept. They discover the men have dosed them with horse tranquilisers to incapacitate them during non-consensual acts. The women are granted two days to debate whether they wish to stay and forgive their abusers, stay and fight the men who violated them or leave the community and forfeit their place in heaven.

LondonNet Film Review

Women Talking (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Words speaks louder than unspeakable actions in Women Talking. Set predominantly in a hayloft where a group of sexually abused Mennonite women have gathered to debate their commune’s fate, writer-director Sarah Polley’s artful and sensitively handled translation of Miriam Toews’ novel harnesses the combined emotional power of an exquisitely calibrated script and a heavyweight ensemble cast. Women Talking is nominated for two Academy Awards next month including Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay, the latter nod a deserved recognition of Polley’s mastery of dialogue, pacing and tone…

It’s intellectually meaty, elegantly structured and feels intensely theatrical in nature despite occasional forays outside the barn to witness children playing in a field, a wife returning home to her bullying husband or two girls quietly leading horses to secret stabling in the event they need to depart in a hurry. The harrowing subject matter is inspired by real-life events in an ultraconservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia and resonates powerfully as part of uncomfortable and vital cultural conversations arising from the MeToo movement. Polley does not have to explicitly depict abuse on screen – bruises and welts on legs, blood on bedsheets and anguish glistening in eyes are devastating cinematic shorthand, which connect with the same dizzying force as an angry fist.

Mennonite men attribute the attacks on their women and girls to ghosts, demons and “wild female imagination”. The shocking truth – victims have been dosed with horse tranquilisers to incapacitate them during non-consensual acts – is exposed and the perpetrators are arrested. The majority of men leave the commune to post bail, granting women two days to debate whether they wish to stay and forgive their abusers, stay and fight the men who violated them or leave the community and forfeit their place in heaven.

A cross-section of victims meets in a hayloft to trade heated opinions while benevolent schoolteacher August (Ben Whishaw) documents the discourse, quietly dampening his feelings for Ona (Rooney Mara), who is pregnant after one attack. Family matriarchs Greta (Sheila McCarthy), Agata (Judith Ivey) and Scarface (Frances McDormand) are divided over the best course of action and there are differences of opinion among their children. Greta’s daughter Mariche (Jessie Buckley) is resigned to forgiving the perpetrators while Agata’s younger daughter Salome (Claire Foy) has already taken a scythe to one man and acknowledges the inescapability of her fury.

Women Talking is an impassioned and wrenching study of empowerment, forgiveness and self-protection orchestrated to primal screams of female artists behind and in front of the camera including Polley, producer/star McDormand and Icelandic composer Hildur Gudnadottir. Mara, Buckley and Foy deliver disorienting blows with their characters’ keynote speeches while Whishaw’s softly spoken educator reflects rare decency across sharply divided gender lines. Kindness and compassion can be taught. It is never too late to learn.

– Kim Hu