Film Review: Women Talking

Director: Sarah Polley
Starring: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley
Running time: 104 minutes

A Mennonite community, closed off from much of the world, where the women and girls are not taught to read or write, is the setting for Sarah Polley’s Oscar nominated film Women Talking. The opening sequence tells us that the women have been mysteriously attacked overnight in a series of horrific rapes that none of them remember. The church elders assign blame to the devil but one night a man is caught and he confesses. He and several other men have been doping the women and girls with cow tranquiliser before raping them. The men have been taken into the city under arrest, with the other men of the colony travelling to post bail and bring them home. The women have 48 hours to decide what to do – to stay and forgive the men the way they have been asked, to stay and fight, or to leave. Representatives, including the pregnant single woman Ona (Rooney Mara), her fierce sister Salome (Claire Foy), and abused wife Mariche (Jessie Buckley) have gathered to talk through their options.

It is fairly obvious quite early on that there is really only one option open to them. However, this is not the focus of the film. This is not a film with action. This is testimony. It’s focused wholly on the voices of victims of crime, something that should not feel as unusual as it does. We never see or hear the point of view of the attackers, we only see and hear of the impact of their violence. Polley has only one man appear in this film: August (Ben Whishaw), the schoolteacher who has been asked to take the minutes of the women’s meeting. He bears witness to their trauma and the many forms that it takes, and so do the audience. It’s often easy for us to ask of victims, “Why don’t they leave?” – Women Talking shows you the ties that bind may be hard to see, but they are strong. They must also discuss the impact of their actions on their faith, on whether they will be welcomed into heaven if they do not do as they have been asked.

The film is shot in muted tones, giving it a timeless look and feel - despite being set in 2010 - and the ensemble cast is terrific. I particularly like the performances from the older women, Sheila McCarthy and Judith Ivey; especially McCarthy’s character, Greta, tapping her false teeth on the tabletop, determined and single-minded.

Women Talking allows space for all the complications, nuance, the buried shame and guilt and the horror to come to the surface as each of the women reconcile themselves to their fate. But it’s as much about love and kindness as it is about resilience in the face of trauma. It asks us to examine what our societies are for and how we value each member of them.

Women Talking is now showing at Broadway Cinema