Women Talking (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

What a strange and wonderful film. Women Talking is almost precisely that: a film about women talking their way through the single biggest decision of their collective lives. The 2018 novel of the same name -- by Canadian author Miriam Toews -- is described as a "reaction through fiction" of real-life events as well as an empowering "act of female imagination." If it is anything like this film adaptation (I haven't read it yet), we could loosely describe it as a Socratic conversation, deeply philosophical and existential. But what isn't philosophical is their emotional investment in this conversation and the life-altering consequences that will ensue. So the drama of this film isn't at all based in any dynamic or even fully coherent narrative; there is no real plot, not much action, and really more themes than characters. It's about the situation, the words, the feelings, and the various reactions and responses to the horrors of these women's lives.

In an unclear, intentionally vague time and setting, a group of women gather in a large community barn. They are Mennonites, of a seemingly conservative variety, who live in a remote, rural colony somewhere; in the film, they speak with American accents and seem to be in a temperate setting, while the real-life colony was located in Bolivia. They have come to the realization, after an eyewitness's accusation, that many women in their colony have been systematically drugged with horse tranquilizers and raped, sometimes repeatedly and sometimes with complications like STIs, unwanted pregnancies, and injuries like knocked-out teeth and bruises. Now that the men of the colony are gone -- the opening narration tells us they've gone to try and gather money to bail the group of condemned men from jail -- the women are able to gather and discuss their plan of action: do they stay and do nothing, stay and fight, or leave?

There are too many interesting things at work here, and I can only really touch on several of them. But to start, let's discuss voice and agency. The film features the voiceover narration of one of the younger girls of the colony, and it seems to be addressed to the unborn child of the pregnant (by rape) woman Ona (Rooney Mara). This makes the narration both very dark and very innocent, and by film's end, surprisingly hopeful, as she intones something to the effect of "this has been my story, and it will not be yours." It's interesting particularly because none of the women have been taught to read or write, and so their oral history is crucial as they decide to leave the colony (SPOILER: they do in fact leave at the film's end; that's not really the point of the film so much as how they get to that decision). Additionally, the colony's male schoolteacher August (Ben Whishaw) -- a former apostate -- joins the women in the barn to take their minutes and record their dialogue. He is not formally permitted to speak, and while he harbors romantic feelings for Ona, he respectfully fulfills his duties without intruding much. His presence makes things a bit weird and tense at times, and in my understanding, it's his words that comprise the book on which this film is based; it's fascinating to me, and very welcome, that his voice and formal control over the narrative is so diminished in this film.

The women debate for a day and a half, and most of the film is just them talking about everything from how to conduct their discussion to their opinions of each other and the men, from vague, dark hints at what has happened to them to heightened concerns over their faith, gender roles, education, place in the world, marriages, etc. It's not unlike, in that way, much classical Grecian drama; for that matter, it's not all that different from 12 Angry Men. Each decision carries so much weight. Doing nothing (as only Frances McDormand's character voices support for) would mean further violence and no change in quality of life, but it may mean guaranteed salvation, as the only pathway to heaven is in fellowship in the colony. Staying and fighting for themselves -- that's a debate, too, if it would be for justice or revenge or equality or incremental improvements in their lives -- is an option, but perhaps carries too many more complex questions and intricacies. Would they have to forgive the men, and could they even if they wanted to? At what point does their abuse of forgiveness become permission? Leaving may mean damnation but liberation, but it too carries too many unknowns: they don't know where in the world they are, have never seen a map, can't read or write anyway. What would they do about the children? At what age are the boys too old to join them? If they stayed, would they be corrupted by the men, or would August be able to help the next generation of men to be better?

It's a very didactic and in some ways theatrical film, but it's never quite cinematic, and so it just won't appeal to everyone. That is, despite excellent production design and staging and cinematography, I'd rather have seen this in theatre, as it just never felt appropriately visually dynamic to me. I found its tone, however, to be the most surprising element of the whole thing. Given its horrific and tragic subject matter, I expected bleak nihilism more than anything. Instead, the film is almost arrestingly calm and even funny. It features no -- again, absolutely no -- onscreen violence. A few blink-and-you'll-miss-it shots show various women waking up, in flashback, with blood on their sheets or bruises on their bodies; bloodied teeth is the most unsettling image. There are references to violence verbally, of course, and some visible bruises (especially on Jessie Buckley's Mariche, whose husband beats her). There is one transgender man in the colony who is mute after his own rape; he only speaks with the children, and when one of the women finally calls him by his male name). His presence is more tragic than anything, and I wish the film did a bit more with him. Even with all this, the dialogue often sparks laughter, or at least smiles, even unexpectedly, as when one of the young girls pretends to be distraught and leaps from the upper level of the barn, only to land safely in a pile of hay.

During the screening I attended, I was reminded more than once of both George Cukor's The Women and M. Night Shyamalan's The Village in tone and, I guess, subject matter. It's not all terribly realistic -- obviously, in terms of actual history, but even in-world of the film -- and I wondered more than once as they referenced medicine where exactly they'd get it, or many of the goods in their colony. Perhaps, as the point of Women Talking is dialogue and ideas more than plot, it would be better conceived of as a parable. The women all seem to represent various stages of grief or ways to process trauma, including revenge, clamming up, fleeing, fighting, dissociating (telling stories), etc. The actors -- who also include Sheila McCarthy, Claire Foy, and Judith Ivey, as if there already weren't enough powerhouse women involved -- are all magnificent, and clearly know the profound depths of their screenplay. By the end, the main takeaway is primarily the universal yet still impossible choice to hope for the unknown or hate the familiar. And it will leave you reeling, if you allow yourself onto this film's wavelength and sit with it a while.