"Women Talking": review

women staring

2022's "Women Talking" is an intimate drama directed by Sarah Polley and adapted from the 2018 novel Women Talking by Canadian writer Miriam Toews, who based her story on true events that occurred at a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. 

The opening voiceover narration sets the stage: the female members of a Mennonite colony have been waking up from stupors, finding their legs and lower bodies bruised and lacerated, and their private parts violated. It turns out that some of the men of the colony have been drugging and raping the girls and women, and the men initially blame the problems on demons or the women's wild imaginings. However, one man gets caught, turned over to the police, and put in jail; the other men of the colony leave for two days to chip in money to bail their fellow man out. While the men are gone, the women gather together to vote on three options: (1) stay in the colony and do nothing, (2) stay and fight the men, or (3) leave the colony. The vote—itself a first since the women generally aren't encouraged to think or to become literate—is a tie between the second and third options. A smaller group of women is given the task of deciding what all the women of the colony should do, and the rest of the film is about the issues these women discuss and their eventual course of action.

Religious questions arise. If we leave, we'll be cast out and unable to enter the kingdom of heaven. Perhaps we should ask forgiveness. What, ask forgiveness of the very men who did this to us? Continue to believe that such men determine whether we enter the kingdom of heaven? Nonsense! But what if it's not all of the men who are guilty? Then the ones who didn't rape us, but knew about the rapes, were still guilty of allowing this to happen. Maternal questions arise. I will never let those men touch my baby ever again. I would rather rip them limb from limb and dance on their graves than allow any of them to touch my child. But if we leave, which children do we take with us, and which do we leave here at the colony? Should there be an age limit? Do we persuade the older children to leave with us, or do we force them to come along? What if the young men turn into their fathers? Questions of fighting arise. What exactly are we fighting for? What does it mean to stay and fight? How do we fight? Is fighting worth the cost? Questions of exile arise. If we leave the colony, where do we go? How shall we live, given our lack of education? What guarantee is there that life outside the colony will be any better than life as part of the colony?

As the women talk, the minutes of their meeting are taken down by a quiet man named August (Ben Whishaw), a teacher whose parents had been exiled from the colony for thinking and questioning too much. August, who returned to the colony to teach its children, has long been in love with Ona (Rooney Mara), who is pregnant with her rapist's child. While the plot unfolds, we get glimpses of life in the colony, which is located on isolated farmland. We see children at play or in class, but because the men are all away, we see almost none of the male colony members aside from August, and a glimpse of the abusive Klaas (Eli Ham), husband of Mariche (Jessie Buckley—pronounce the character's name "muh-REE-kay"); Klaas returns early from the two-day trip to town, right as the women are finalizing their plans.

Since most of the drama pivots on what the women ultimately decide to do, I can't spoil the film for you here. I'll say that "Women Talking" features beautiful cinematography, quietly powerful dialogue, and a heartbreaking story that's all the more painful because it's based on a terrible incident that really occurred in Bolivia (the setting for the movie appears to be America; everyone speaks modern English with an American accent, and at one point, we discover the year is 2010). There might be a temptation to view the film as some sort of feminist statement: the principal male character is quiet, mousey, and seemingly lacking in agency; some of the women, meanwhile, are strident and strong-willed, easily taking on the role of the pants-wearers. But I ultimately see "Women Talking" as a human drama about a horrific chapter in these women's lives, forcing the women to make a painfully life-changing choice as they strive to gain control over their own futures. I will say this, though: despite how the movie ends, I wasn't convinced that that was the end of the story. Not by a long shot.

See "Women Talking" with my blessing, but don't expect to come out of the experience feeling rosy or particularly optimistic about human nature.