Rating: 8.7
Premise: Do nothing. Stay and fight. Or leave. In 2010, the women of an isolated religious community grapple with reconciling their faith after a series of sexual assaults.
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Orion Pictures
Directed by Sarah Polley
Screenplay by Sarah Polley & Miriam Toews
Based on the novel by Miriam Toews
Cast: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw, Frances McDormand
Runtime: 1hr 44min
Rating: 14A
Drama
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IMDb Rating: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
RT Audience Score: 88%
RT Critic Average: 8.2/10
RT Audience Average: 4.5/5
Metacritic Score: 78
CinemaScore: n/a
Letterboxd: 3.9/5
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My Review:
“Women Talking” is a fantastic example of the classic saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. I am not going to lie; going in I thought this would be a more Oscar-bait, artsy type of movie. I thought I would find it slow and while I knew it would be impactful, I was not prepared for just how strong of a film this is. I was riveted from start to finish. It's a heavy watch, as it deals with very serious themes and topics, but I found that it never let itself get too overwhelmingly heavy, and even offered some cathartic humour throughout and some moments of hope near the end. Frankly, the movie left me speechless. It is insanely well made and very much deserves its spot on this year's Best Picture lineup.
“Women Talking” grapples with the sexual violence that can be embedded within every society, no matter how small or close-knit, and how the men who commit such acts rarely face any true justice or accountability for their actions. It’s a very timely story, and it explores how women are perceived when alleging sexual violence, their inner turmoil in the aftermath, and the limited options they have. Though the backstory behind the events in “Women Talking” is violent, the film is not. We never see the violence that the women have experienced. We see only short glimpses of the aftermath. Instead, we watch a community of women come together as they must decide, in a very short space of time, what their collective response will be. This is a very dialogue driven film, as in it we see a group of women, many who disagree on essential things, have a conversation to figure out how they might move forward together to build a better world for themselves and their children. Without a strong script, this film would not have worked half as well. However this is indeed one of the best screenplays of the last year. It is essentially a sequence of conversation scenes (as the title describes), and yet I was riveted the entire time. There were so many things I didn’t expect, and I loved that the film touched on so many different ideologies and truly provided an impactful discussion on the topics it covered. It is very thought provoking; you’ll find yourself having a conversation with yourself, you’ll find yourself listening very attentively to all the different perspectives, all the pros and cons of each choice that are raised as you try and figure out what you would decide to do alongside the characters. For this I truly respect the film, the screenplay is just pure excellence. What’s even better is that the film never even drags, it is a very quick hour and forty-four minutes that I was very compelled by. This film is very important. The themes covered may be difficult to discuss, but are very necessary in this day and age, and I found the script delicately wove them throughout the story.
And the script isn’t the only great element this movie is boasting! This film has excellent performances from the entire cast! I love it when the whole cast gives amazing performances, I really wish this happened more often! Usually with ensemble casts, there are one or two standouts, but here every single actor gets their time to shine. From Claire Foy to Jessie Buckley to Rooney Mara to Ben Whishaw and many others… they all were incredible and had some really great moments! For many this might even be some career best performances! I was blown away by the acting on display here and genuinely wish all of them got the awards recognition they so deserve.
Now, I do have a few minor issues with the film. While I thought the direction was quite strong, and especially loved how Sarah Polley used cutaways in such a poetic, Terrence Malick like fashion, I feel she did make one choice that didn’t work out so well. And that has to do with the colour grading. The cinematography itself is perfectly fine, frankly it was very rich and evocative, but they took away from it with the awful colour grading. I understand Polley desaturated the colour to show how the character's lives had become, but the script does enough to show this. She was withholding colour to make a point, and it is so obvious because we are made so aware of that choice that it takes us out of the movie. The film looks bland and unappealing, the visuals seem so boring which made it very hard to get into the movie and appreciate the cinematography and direction on display. I think this was the one poor choice, but ultimately it is just a nitpick. The script and performances more than make up for a lacklustre colour grade.
“Women Talking” is a profoundly powerful, stirring and moving film, with remarkable, bold performances and impeccable writing and direction. Even the score, by Hildur Guðnadóttir works exceptionally well. It’s a must see film, I highly recommend giving it a watch and really engaging with the discussions the movie has. I’m very pleased that it ended up getting a “Best Picture” nod, as it more than deserves it. It is a very important film.
Fun Fact: Director Sarah Polley explained more about the colour grading of the film, explaining how they played with saturation levels to create a feeling of "a world that had faded in the past". This is why the film appears to be almost black-and-white, but not quite.
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