Worth: $19.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara, Kate Hallett, Ben Whishaw, Sheila McCarthy, Jessie Buckley, Michelle McLeod, Emily Mitchell
Intro:
… devastating but also surprisingly joyous …
Sarah Polley’s Women Talking is based on true events which occurred in a Mennonite community in Bolivia in which the women of an ultra-conservative religious sect were sprayed with animal tranquiliser and raped. The youngest victim was three years old, the eldest was in her sixties.
Canadian author Miriam Toews, who grew up in a Mennonite community, took the seeds of the true story and based her 2018 novel, which Polley adapts in conjunction with Toews, and turned it into an imagined response, “A work of women’s imagination,” wherein the women in the community are given less than 48-hours to come up with a plan on how they will deal with the shocking events while the men are away bailing out one of the perpetrators of the assaults.
It is 2010, and the women live in a remote farming community in North America. For an unspecified amount of time, the women have been routinely attacked by a group of men. Polley doesn’t show the attacks, just the aftermath of bloodied sheets and bruised bodies. When one of the attackers is identified by two young girls, Salome (Claire Foy) goes after him with a scythe and murder in her heart.
The men, who had previously been telling the women that there were no attacks, and that they were sinfully imagining their own desires influenced by Satan, realise that certain brethren are in mortal danger from reprise. A man is arrested, and the brethren leave the community to bail him out. The absence of the men gives the women time to decide how they will proceed. Do they do nothing, stay and fight, or leave?
“This story begins before you were born,” is the narration provided by Autje (Kate Hallett) addressing the unborn child of Ona (Rooney Mara). Ona’s pregnancy is one that was conceived through rape. Autje is specifying a single child but is also speaking about the whole community. Whatever happens, a council of women will determine what kind of world Ona’s baby will be born into. It will also define the lives of the women who have long suffered under the hands of the brutal patriarchy of the sect.
Polley creates an ensemble piece where various characters voice their opinions on their options. The women have been kept from education, so they rely on a recently returned apostate, August (Ben Whishaw) to keep the minutes of their discussion. When the first option of doing nothing is off the table, much to the disgust of Scarface Janz (Frances McDormand), who believes that the other options will block their entry to heaven, the debate rests with two families. Greta (Sheila McCarthy) is the mother of the furiously angry Mariche (Jessie Buckley) and the traumatised but rebellious Mejal (Michelle McLeod). Also present are young women, barely teens, Autje (Mariche’s daughter) and Neitje (Lin McNeil). They all have a voice and must come to a consensus about either staying and fighting – a proposition which would be against the core community values of pacifism – or leaving, an act which will mean they lose all they know and may lead them to be blocked by the grace of the Lord.
What follows is a riveting drama, which although set predominantly in a hayloft, creates an expansive world for the women. Polley allows each of her characters to bring forth their specific reasons to stay or flee. Mariche is short tempered and disinterested in details. As the narrative unfolds, we find out that she and her children have been at the end of horrific domestic abuse by her husband, something her mother Greta asked her to forgive far too often. Salome (Claire Foy) is afraid she will become a murderer if she stays. Her four-year-old daughter is suffering from an infection that we later find out is the result of rape. She is also afraid that she will have to leave her son if the women leave, which will mean he is indoctrinated by the men.
Ona is more of a mystery. She radiates love and forgiveness. She is ready to forgive whoever impregnated her as she believes that he once was an innocent child. Ona is also the focus of August’s affection and the reason he returned to the community after his excommunicated mother died.
No one character dominates, although the focus does stay mostly on Buckley, Mara, Foy, and Whishaw. The outcome of the debate means a new world for which the women and children have no familiarity. They don’t even know where on the planet they are living, having been refused the ability to even see a map.
Women Talking is a stellar emotional and dramatic experience. What could easily look like a filmed play is given a distinct visual language by cinematographer Luc Montpellier. The desaturated colours of the barn and the homesteads are contrasted by a dappled light of the fields in which the children play. The community is equally restrictive and Edenic – Polley and Toews note that there is beauty in the place the women inhabit, but that beauty has come at a cost, which means they don’t truly know who they are or who they could be.
Every reveal is a gut punch, and although there are moments of humour (when it’s suggested that they make the men leave, the women laugh uncontrollably), what unfolds is a testament to the bravery of the women and the sisterhood they have formed and will further form to save themselves, spiritually and literally.
It is near impossible not to be moved by Women Talking. In a film that is the result of unspeakable violence, there are also moments of heartbreaking empathy and forgiveness – forgiveness that comes not from letting the men of the community off the hook for what they have enabled, but forgiveness of self and other women for their adherence to a doctrine that was built to damage them. It is important to note that at no stage do the women question God; the Bible remains their foundation. Polley and Toews are not creating an anti-religious invective. They are questioning how the word of God has been twisted by men to control women.
Women Talking is devastating but also surprisingly joyous. The audience comes to understand the plight of the women as something more complex than they would expect in a Western world that is increasingly secular. Faith is the guiding light, but the women themselves, in staying true to their faith, in turn stay true to each other. Simple shots of women holding hands (used brilliantly as the promotional poster) resonate with all the solidarity and true sisterhood that the women feel for each other. Women Talking is near perfect cinema and one of the most affecting dramas in contemporary film, with every performance a shining diamond.
