An adaptation of Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name, which itself was inspired by real events, Women Talking is a story about misogynistic tyranny and terror that recalls The Handmaid’s Tale—except for the fact that it takes place not in a dystopian world but, depressingly, our own. Set in a cloistered Mennonite community wracked by male monstrousness, writer/director Sarah Polley’s first fictional feature since 2011’s Take This Waltz is a wrenching drama about freedom, faith, abuse, autonomy, responsibility and survival, all of which it tackles with patience and poignancy. There’s weight to its stillness, heartbreak in its communal suffering, and hope in its belief in the power of transformation and, also, in people’s capacity to act.
Collaborating with Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, Polley provides no context for Women Talking’s time period or geography, which allows her to fixate on her scenario’s unique specifics while simultaneously positioning the material as representative of larger contemporary concerns. Driven by a young girl’s narration to an unborn child, the film involves a Mennonite enclave at a moment of pivotal calamity: the rape of a four-year-old girl by a young male community member. This is recounted in jarring flashes, including the sight of the child’s mother Salome (Foy) trying to exact brutal vengeance against the perpetrator, and concludes with word that the men have departed for the city to bail out the accused kids. In the meantime, this population’s women vote on whether to stay, to fight, or to flee. When no consensus is reached, a select group gather in a barn hayloft to determine the best course of action.
The title of Women Talking is not misleading; its drama is of a predominantly conversational nature. The women’s 12 Angry Men-esque debate is led by optimistic and open-minded Ona (Rooney Mara), furious Salome, and bitter and fearful Mariche (Buckley), and it’s complicated by everyone’s shared history of systematic subjugation. None of these females can read or write—or have been educated about (or exposed to) the wider world. Instead, they’ve been indoctrinated to believe that reaching the Kingdom of Heaven is their primary goal, and can only be achieved by obeying male church elders. They have, for all intents and purposes, been born and bred to remain docile, ignorant, and servile. More horrifying still, they’ve been taught to grin and bear it when they awaken in the morning with bruises on their bodies and blood dripping from beneath their nightgowns courtesy of tranquilizer-facilitated rape. Generation after generation, this has been their fate, thus making Salome’s tragedy—and resultant revolt—a traumatic rupture in the status quo.
Employing an ashen palette that reflects the desolation of her characters—all of whom wear prairie dresses and head scarves like residents of the 18th century—Polley stages these deliberations with intense empathy, her camera capturing anguish and anger in moving close-ups and graceful pans. Like a knife stabbing a body, flashbacks suddenly intrude upon the primary proceedings and then vanish just as quickly, suggesting the way in which past violations continue to wound. In the present, the focus remains on the pros and cons of their options, while August (Ben Whishaw)—a failed farmer-turned-schoolteacher whose mother was exiled for speaking out against the community’s sexist power dynamics—takes handwritten minutes of the meeting. With the men’s not-too-distant return hanging over their heads, and devout Scarface Janz (McDormand, in a near-silent background role) refusing to take part in this potential heretical rebellion, tensions begin high and only escalate from there.
Women Talking’s prime interest is how women find their voice when they’ve been denied the opportunity to ever have one, and Polley tackles the issue from the unique perspective of her protagonists, whose only frames of reference are their religious convictions and personal experiences. The question isn’t whether Ona and company should leave (which is obvious) but, rather, how they can come to that conclusion after a lifetime of being brainwashed and trapped by theological ritual and dogma, as well as physical and sexual violence. Polley’s script investigates that process in exacting detail, allowing Salome to articulate her rage (which she’s certain will blossom into murderousness should she stay); Mariche to express fear about the consequences of abandoning their home; Ona to itemize and analyze the costs and benefits of their choices; and Ona’s mother Agata (Judith Ivey) to offer guidance and counsel and Mariche’s mom Greta (Sheila McCarthy) to impart wisdom through metaphorical tales about her horses.
There are additional wounded souls strewn throughout Women Talking, including two young daughters who braid their hair together in a symbolic gesture of kinship, as well as trans teen Melvin (August Winter), the victim of unthinkable incest. All are scarred by the brutality and domination of their male counterparts, who remain unseen—a creative decision that renders them specters, which is fitting considering that they disingenuously blame their rapes on ghosts. “What follows is an act of female imagination” reads an early title card, foreshadowing the women’s struggle to envision an independent future for which they have no model, and consequently aren’t sure is attainable—or, moreover, enviable, even in comparison to their nightmarish current circumstances.
Though its most touching performance comes courtesy of Whishaw as a man who’s torn between selfless compassion and love for Ona, Women Talking is a showcase for its leading ladies, with Mara the affecting axis around which the rest—and, particularly, a distressed Buckley and incensed Foy—revolve. Eschewing theatrics, they embody these marginalized individuals with soulful intensity, pinpointing the grief and anxiety that threatens to keep them in figurative chains, and the resolve and piety that affords them a shot at liberation (beautifully visualized by the sight of Ona teaching her compatriots how to use their fists and thumb to locate the Southern Cross constellation). Polley grants her ensemble plentiful space to navigate the emotional and intellectual ins and outs of their predicament, eliciting a collection of superb turns that are at once reserved and volatile, despairing and determined. Together, they craft a portrait of the birth of feminine agency and solidarity that resounds with urgent timeliness.
