Top Movies of 2022: No. 11 - Women Talking

11. Women Talking, dir. Sarah Polley

The crimes that launch the story of Women Talking are unspeakable. We never see any of the attacks, just the horrible mornings after. Frankly, such a subject matter would be unfilmable. This is an enormous responsibility for any film to give itself, to portray this much pain and this much horror respectfully. I could not imagine trying to take on such a task an artistic endeavor, this is fearless work.

All of Women Talking is set in and around one large barn in a rural Mennonite colony, with women from every age gathering to discuss what must be done next. The facts of the crimes are no longer in doubt, and the suffering is universal. Some of these women need dentures or assistance walking down the stairs. Some of them are still so young they cannot pay attention and play aimlessly with their braids. The horrible fact that you must remember in every scene of Women Talking is this: they're all victims. Even the smallest ones were abused in secret, at night, and lied to by their community.

If you really want to feel extra shitty today, I am sorry to report that this is all based loosely on real events that happened in a Mennonite colony in Columbia between 2005 and 2009. Also, Women Talking is not depicting some unique event that could never happen again. There are millions of people living in closed-off, deeply religious communities just like the one here. And this is not a particularly Christian or Protestant problem. There have been countless stories of abuse happening in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, for example. It does not necessarily need to even be a religious problem. It is a problem of control, and who has it. Woman Talking even takes time to remember that everybody is dominated by their structures, the victims and the perpetrators. These kinds of power dynamics lead inevitably to abuse, and even those with the power can never be fully in control. I am in awe this movie could have the wisdom to recognize that everybody is a victim one way or another.

Women Talking is a stage play in structure, the entire film takes place during one day in and around one barn between about a dozen characters. Imagine 12 Angry Men replaced by 12(-ish) Revolutionary Women. As the title implies, they are all speaking together to find an answer for the women and children of their unnamed colony. At the start there are only three options: 1) stay and accept life as it is, 2) stay and fight, and 3) leave. The three women with the largest personalities take the three corners of the argument. Salome (Claire Foy) has funneled all her pain into fighting. Marchie (Jessie Buckley), despite living with a domestic abuses, wishes to stay. She can only guard herself in sarcasm and eye-rolls. Finally the Leave faction is led by Ona (Rooney Mara), a woman who knows far more than she is willing to reveal behind her smile.

Since none of the women are capable of reading or writing, they must rely on the unmarried school teacher, August (Ben Whishaw) to write their minutes and explain their actions. There are only two adult men with speaking roles in Women Talking. One is August, who has lived outside of the colony to train for his profession. The other is Melvin (August Winter), a trans man, but also a victim of the attacks. Every man who fits into the traditional masculine role of the colony are out this day. (I note that both of these male actors are queer.) The one man who does return, Marchie's violent husband, is never seen on camera. We only see his impact with the bruises on Marchie's face in the final act of the film, another spectacular act of horror that is thankfully not shown.

Women Talking does not shake away from the details, yet is not an unrelentingly grim movie. We learn that Melvin was probably abused by his brother and miscarried the fetus. But also, it is not pornographic in suffering. There's laughter, there's play, there's rivalries, there's hints of precocious crushes, there's long-suffering unrequited loves.Mejal (Michelle McLeod), gets a small act of teenage rebellion by lighting cigarettes while the adults is not looking. Unfortunately it turns back to the main matter when we discover she's been smoking ever since the incidents, and the smell of nicotine helps her out of her panic attacks. 

At no point does the cast ever feel like two-dimensional cut-outs symbols of people or marionettes the movie needs to operate to make a point. They're a group of people, three families, gathered together to make sense of the impossible, and to discover a revolutionary potential and strength amongst themselves.

In order for a movie like this to work at all, Women Talking needs an absolutely stellar cast. Every person from the big stars down to the relatively unknowns are collectively putting on outstanding performances. All the young women in the cast are great finds, capable of as much emotional range as the veterans. The one small disappointment may come from Francis McDormand's character of Janz, who is prominently featured in the marketing, but ultimately is merely a cameo.

And no, Women Talking is not an easy watch. It is not an easy movie to write about either. If Women Talking sounds like too much for you, that may indeed be the case. I recently decided the new biopic of Emmitt Till was beyond me. I could not even watch that trailer. Women Talking asks a lot from its audience. It also delivers quite a lot more in terms of strength and inspiration, to find a better future in the midst of a nightmarish present.