Women Talking

Do nothing. Stay and fight. Or leave. A group of women in an isolated Mennonite community grapple with reconciling their reality with their faith after a string of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men. This film is based on the novel, "Women Talking" by Canadian writer Miriam Toews. Toews describes her novel as "a reaction through fiction" to the true-life events that took place on the Manitoba Colony, a remote Mennonite community in Bolivia.

  • Released: 2022-12-02
  • Runtime: 120 minutes
  • Genre: Drama
  • Stars: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, August Winter, Frances McDormand, Kira Guloien, Shayla Brown, Eli Ham, Lochlan Ray Miller, Vivien Endicott Douglas, Nathaniel McParland, Marcus Craig, Will Bowes, Emily Drake
  • Director: Sarah Polley
 Comments
  • yesterdayman2002 - 13 January 2023
    A cheap exploitation of a real tragedy
    Waste of good costume, talented cast, and good production over a nonsense, poorly written, fictional account of the most shocking incident to ever happen in a Mennonite Community. Don't watch this movie if you are expecting to gain insight over what really happened, or what life is really like living in an old world Mennonite community, because errors are abound.

    Front and foremost in the error department is the idea that none of these women can read or write. There is not a Mennonite Colony on this planet that forbids the education of women, this movie mistakes the Mennonites for Islamic Fundamentalists. No horse and buggy either as even the old world colonies allow motorized cars, this movie mistakes Mennonites for the Amish. And no, a bible-based religious community would not be tolerant of a young girl deciding to change her gender, she would have been excommunicated day one.

    Even if you ignore the errors and treat this as a fictional account in a fictional world, the movie still does not shine as the story is filled with plot-holes abound, which is surprising as there isn't much plot to begin with. Women who don't know how to read and write (or even know what a comma is) are well-versed in the Bible even to the point where they've memorized the chapters and verses of several passages. Lots of time is spent setting up story elements and relationship arcs that never pay off. In executing "the decision" It never factors in the scores of Men who were not the perpetrators, the movie downright ignores them as a plot element.

    Even if you ignore the plot/story altogether and treat this as a character study, the movie still does not shine. The dialogue is boring and mediocre as each character only says things meant to arouse sympathy and emotion from other characters. It feels like a cheap imitation of a melodramatic stage-play written in the '50s (and not one of the good ones either). It wastes runtime trying to find new ways and reasons for you to feel sorry for these characters, what was the point of this?

    There really is nothing worthwhile here, it feels like a sad attempt to exploit a real-life tragedy to promote an authors poor writing career, transformed into a movie that exploits a real-life tragedy to promote a fad social agenda. Please don't fall for this trap of a movie. Please don't mistake this for good craft or good art. 40 years from now, no one will look back at this movie and see anything of any value here.
  • katiefanatic-791-306918 - 4 December 2022
    Benefits from its dilemma.
    There's two movies about sexual assault this year-this and the Harvey Weinstein based 'she said'. I found 'she Said' To be like watching 'spotlight' all over again. It didn't add anything new to the conversation. This does because of its nuances. It's easy to make a 'sexual assault bad' movie but this movie grapples within a religious faith based community where things aren't so black and white. I loved how all the characters represented all points of view-doing something about it, say nothing, etc. I love all the main cast-Claire foy, Jessie Buckley, Rooney Mara. Really great film done subtly on an important subject.