Women Talking review: Sumptuous cast make this remarkable drama sing
Independent cinema fans will rejoice at the return of Sarah Polley to the big screen, a decade on from the filmmaker’s success with Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell. She brings a mouth-watering cast to this adaptation of the 2018 Miriam Teows novel Women Talking, set in a remote religious commune that eschews technology.
A group of women come together with concerns that the men have been abusing the women and children. United in their belief that something must be done, they debate exactly how to go about it – elder Scarface (Frances McDormand) wants to keep things as they are, pregnant Ona (Rooney Mara) wavers between fleeing and staying, while Salome (Claire Foy) leads the charge to stay and fight.
The discussion is given an additional layer thanks to the community’s religion, which Polley neither celebrates nor condemns. As the conversation develops, the cast paint a picture of the complexities of abuse. How they react becomes yet another struggle, and the way each actor works through their character’s pain is remarkable.
This high standard is almost expected from McDormand, but Mara and Foy both have standout moments too, with Ben Whishaw providing excellent support as the group’s secretary.
The cast is so good, in fact, that it often eclipses the script, which has a tendency to tell us what’s happening rather than allowing the actors to show us. This, combined with the sparse set (the film mostly takes place in a loft), give the film a stagey feel that detracts from the rawness of the dialogue.
Quibbles aside, Women Talking combines pressing subject matter and a terrific cast to absolutely capture the zeitgeist, making it one of the most vital films of the year to date.