Review: A Religious Community Faces the Truth About Rape in ‘Women Talking’

When the trailer for Sarah Polley’s latest drama, Women Talking, first dropped online, there was a unanimous reaction. The cinematography was quite jarring, especially compared to the vibrant promotional stills which were released first.

A lot of filmmakers choose unflattering visuals to reflect a harsh theme or character in a movie. With Women Talking, it’s easy to see that’s what Polley was aiming for. This is a story about rape victims coping with their abuse, so their world appears as how they feel.

But like Maria Schrader’s She Said (2022), Polley’s film is underperforming, perhaps because most people don’t want to spend time at the movie theater focusing on such serious subject matter. United Artists also dropped the ball because of how difficult it would be to try to find a demographic for the film

Based on Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name, Women Talking attempts to be both feminist and spiritual, because the victims are part of a Mennonite commune on a rural farm and haven’t lost their faith.

After experiencing too many attacks in the middle of the night and assuming the rapes weren’t committed by the men on the commune, the group of women come together to decide what they should do about their situation. Married Mariche (Jessie Buckley) believes they should just continue living their lives, Salome (Claire Foy) wants to physically fight her abusers, while pregnant Ona (Rooney Mara) thinks it might be best for the women and children to secretly leave the community and start over.

Ben Whishaw co-stars as the one man on the women’s side, who is also in love with Ona, and Frances McDormand appears as one of the older female Mennonites. Once you accept the gray, washed-out aesthetic, Women Talking is an interesting drama about women torn between their home and what they believe is right.

Buckley and Foy have been getting the most attention from critics for their emotional performances, but I was drawn to Mara’s quiet, calm portrayal in the main trio. Whishaw is also effectively sympathetic and understanding as August, the one man we see on screen, and has a boyish essence similar to Anthony Perkins.

Polley, an atheist, has done her homework (as did Toews, who was raised Mennonite), and doesn’t belittle or stereotype the group’s religious beliefs. We are led to understand how women from this type of environment would process and argue or challenge each other over their options. 

What took me out occasionally wasn’t the color scheme, but how low the film was lit for most of the movie, even during daytime scenes. There were also a few moments of awkward comic relief, mostly from two teen characters, that landed completely flat.

Women Talking remains more relevant than She Said. And I have to admit, this is currently my choice for the movie with the least expected use of the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer.”