“What follows is an act of female imagination.”
Sarah Polley has always been a wonderful actress who turned in to an Oscar worthy director. It’s just a shame she’s yet to be recognized as one by the Academy. “Women Talking” is a potent indictment of modern civilization where women are gradually losing not only bodily autonomy, but the clear power to punish those that do harm to their bodies. “Women Talking” and its release does not seem like an accident, as Polley, a staunch activist manages to create a very tense tale of women grappling with their duties to themselves, their community, and their faith.
In a Mennonite community, a few local men have been discovered to be drugging and raping a few of the women while unconscious. Those that committed the rapes are turned over to the authorities not out of a desire to punish them, but rather to keep them safe from the wrath of the women. The men of the colony have banded together to travel to the city and bail out the perpetrators, leaving the women with an ultimatum. They either forgive their attackers when everyone returns, or else they must leave the colony forever, and be denied entry into the kingdom of heaven.
This is recognized of course as a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation that pushes this group of women in to an obvious corner. “Women Talking” is incredibly upsetting in that these women that can barely read or write, are forced to rally and decide what kind of future they want for themselves, and most of all their daughters. Things come to an impasse when the women realize that their votes are tied, and there’s a heated conflict of loyalty to their faith, and loyalty to their families. Director Polley stages a majority of “Women Talking” within the confines of a barn where the women converse and try to figure out if they can live with the idea of being used against their consent.
Polley packs her drama with a magnificent list of female actors including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Wishaw, and Frances McDormand, respectively. McDormand helps to produce the film. “Women Talking” asks a lot of tough questions, while also offering no easy answers. There’s not a lot that these women can do to gain justice, even if they’ve been given the illusion of it by the patriarchs of the village. The question posed to us is: How is this different than the society that we live in? Sarah Polley directs with urgency and immediacy, all the while allowing the cast to explode on screen. “Women Talking” is a remarkable film, and it’s a very important one at that.