Movie Review: Women Talking directed by Sarah Polley

As the title suggests, this movie is a group of women talking. Not the chatter of idle gossip or the most recent fashions, but the serious debate about whether ‘to do nothing, to stay and fight or to leave’. Based on true events of horrendous serial and ongoing rape and domestic abuse in a Mennonite colony, the women of the colony knew they had to do something, or stay quiet. Throughout the movie, there were flashback scenes of the effects of the rapes and abuse. Sensitive to the audience, the actual violent acts were not part of the filming. Drugged, they never knew who or when they would be assaulted. They were given many reasons why they woke up with bruises, became infected or pregnant. Reasons of dreaming, making things up, ghosts or Satan were given for the behaviour of the men of the colony. After one such attack, one of the girls saw the face of her abuser, reported it to the colony elders. The abuser named the others and they were taken to jail - for their own protection. At least one woman was angry enough to attack one of them.

 The women discussed how they had never asked for any kind of help at all from the men.  This prompted one of the few scenes of levity in the movie when they realized that the first thing that they would ever ask of the men would be for the men to leave the colony. There were many scenes of happy children playing in the cornfields surrounding the colony.

The setting was the loft of the barn on the colony’s land. One man only was included in their deliberations: the school teacher who was there only to take the minutes of their meeting. Given the content of the movie, the gray/green/brown filter used in the cinematography was very effective in telling this disturbing and hopeful story. We do not know the outcome for the abusers, but the final scene is of a long line of carriages with children, women and belongings leaving the colony.

“Time will heal. Our freedom and safety are the ultimate goals, 

and it is men who prevent us from achieving those goals.” 

~ Women Talking

Directed by: Sarah Polley

Based on the novel: Women Talking by Miriam Toews

Writing Credits: Sarah Polley (screenplay by) and

                           Miriam Toews (screenplay by)

Abbreviated Cast:

Rooney Mara - Ona

Judith Ivey  - Agata

Emily Mitchell - Miep 

Kate Hallet - Autje 

Liv McNeil - Neitje

Claire Foy - Salom

Sheila McCarthy - Greta

Jessie Buckley - Mariche

Michelle McLeod - Mejal

Kira Guloien - Anna

Shayla Brown - Helena

Frances McDormand - Scarface Janz

Vivien Endicott Douglas - Clara

Ben Whishaw - August

August Winter - Melvin