Content warning: This piece contains discussions of sexual assault and domestic violence.
Women Talking poses the question: is it more appropriate to fight for yourself, or disappear completely when trying to escape routine sexual abuse? As Sarah Polley leaves the viewer contemplating, it isn’t so much about the answer, as much as it is all about letting those who’ve suffered air out their frustrations and get a better understanding of one another. In writer-director Sarah Polley’s first feature film behind the camera since 2012’s wonderful Stories We Tell and her first narrative feature since Take this Waltz, she continues to show herself as one of the most empathetic filmmakers working today, and in turn gives us one of the year’s very best films.
In the opening scene of Women Talking, Polley leaves you with the image of one of the abusers who was caught in the act. But it does not come without the fear of what those within the community would end up thinking in turn. This is the very essence to what makes Women Talking as powerful a statement as it is, because we are listening to the voices of women who are continually being boxed into forgiving the perpetrators for all that they’ve done over the years, because of their pacifism. While the title of the film and the novel is indeed “Women Talking,” there’s much to be said about how much the silence around these women becomes a statement in and of itself.
For context, Miriam Toews’s 2018 novel was inspired by the story of a conservative Mennonite colony in Bolivia, who had faced a series of horrifying sexual assaults between 2005 and 2009. Many women and girls who were as young as three years old had woken up facing the aftereffects of the assaults, and seven men were put on trial. Toews’s retelling of this horrifying story does not detail the assaults, but in the age of the #MeToo movement, Toews’s novel provides these women a voice, especially for those who are unable to speak for themselves out of fear – which Polley’s film builds itself from. These women slowly find themselves reconciling with their own beliefs, especially while the men of the town aren’t around and are going out to bail out the perpetrators.
With only one instance of the attacks being shown on screen, the film’s colour palette represents the lack of hope that the women in this community are facing. The whole world looks so dour, but not without small glimmers of hope. Polley and DoP Luc Montpellier create a world that feels corrupted by the influence of toxic men, setting the tone for the rest of the film. Though it’s worth noting that Polley initially had intended for this film to be shot in black-and-white, the completely desaturated look is one that works in its favour to reflect the clouded view of the world that these women are inhabiting.
As much of the film centers itself on the talks about what the women of a very religious Mennonite community can be made to endure because of their pacifism, the image might not be shown explicitly on the screen, but it is still in your heads. Yet there’s a powerful statement reflected here, with the fact that there’s no easy solution at play. These women have their own ways of coping with the abuse that they had faced regularly, but also know that they must come to one unanimous agreement if they truly want to feel a sense of peace after everything that they’ve been through, or may continue going through over time.
These women have been routinely drugged and raped by the men around them, but Women Talking doesn’t aspire to tell a tale only of how men are evil in this circumstance. Of course, Ben Whishaw’s role as August Epp, who played a more significant role within the novel, goes to show how, even the well-intentioned men around them cannot escape this hierarchical structuring which often puts the vulnerable at the bottom. Serving as a note-taker for the women, who are illiterate, there’s a sense of urgency coming aboard from the fact that the scope of the damage being done to this community isn’t only affecting the women as much as it is the young boys and the men in turn.
All of this is topped off with a particularly haunting usage of “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. With how sparingly the music is used in the film, it mixes oddly well enough with Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score to create a devastating aftereffect. But what’s especially damning about the way it comes into play in Women Talking comes from the lyrical content, supposedly as an anthem that’s calling for them to take pride in what the men around them have done. Even when you hear it in a jovial context, the few times you hear something of that sort in here just seem emblematic of an imminent danger at hand, and Polley captures that fear with ease.
Performances across the board from the cast are incredibly stellar, with standouts to be found in Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Judith Ivey – all of them having incredibly well-rounded and sharing the complicated, broken perspectives of how to take in the experience. With how Sarah Polley directs the cast, they all reflect the reality at hand, in that everyone’s own responses to a traumatic series of events cannot be interpreted just through one way. And she sees that with coming up with an ultimatum, there is no right or wrong answer, as reflected by how the responses each character has to the scope of their situation.
Women Talking might not prove an easy watch, but it will undeniably feel cathartic – especially as the experience resonates throughout. And even though the film may simply be called “Women Talking,” there’s no doubt that the feelings shared are not limited only to the women in the audience. But for those who’ve been through a sexual assault, regardless of their gender, the attempt to meet an ultimatum is no easy journey and Polley doesn’t filter the means of coping through one lens. That’s the greatest power presented by Women Talking, it is never about just the one voice as much as it is the collective, and how they create one unified voice in turn. But all in all, it feels devastating enough just thinking back to how the supposed realm of safety, at most, is merely an illusion and the collective trauma cannot be erased so easily.
