I saw Women Talking at the Coronado Island Film Festival almost three weeks ago. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. I’ve been contemplating how to write about it and explain why I liked it, because it really resonated with me. Here’s some quick bullet points about this devastating movie:

• Trigger Warning: there are very horrifying acts of sexual violence discussed in this movie.

• The premise is hard to think about. So going into the movie there is some nervousness. How are they going to portray the terrible acts that have led to this unthinkable situation?

• The dialogue drives it while the depictions of the direct aftermath of the attacks heighten the sheer horror of the situation, without actually showing the sexual violence, thankfully. It’s more effective for the story this way, focusing the lense on the continuous devastation that is caused by these types of attacks beyond just the violent part.

• It conceptualizes how human beings can continue on past this type of hellscape. We see the thought process through a collective of women dealing with a shared trauma and debating their next steps. We also see logical thought processes on broad themes like democracy, human development, and escaping violent cycles. It comes across almost as a document to always remember but plays out as an engaging cinematic experience.

• The premise: It’s a true story based loosely around a true incident that happened in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia in 2010. Men of the colony were caught drugging and raping women and then telling them it was demons or that the women were hallucinating. Sarah Polley, the director of Women Talking, said that the conversations in the movie were completely fictionalized and it changed to be set in America (there is a book that the movie is adapted from as well), but the fact that this really happened is haunting. The movie begins after the women have already caught the men. They are all in jail temporarily in the nearest not-named, non-Mennonite city. The movie is the women of the colony talking, debating, and grappling with the choice to either stay and fight or leave the colony. 

• The biggest standout things: the script, Jessie Buckley’s performance and character (Mariche), Claire Foy’s performance and character (Salome), the younger duo that is always nearby who bring humor and even more intense fear because you're worried for their safety (Kate Hallett/Autje & Liv McNeil/Neitje), and the heroic beta guy (Ben Wishaw/August).

I liked the visual artistry of Women Talking as well. In contrast to a few opinions I’ve read that described the coloring as detracting from the story, I didn’t experience that. But I wasn’t there for the color grade. I’m always there for the story. It’s not that I don’t care about the quality of the aesthetics, it’s that it takes a whole lot for the visuals to take me out of a good story.

Plus, when I do notice something framed cool or a scene shot in a unique way it earns bonus points. For example in the beginning of Women Talking there is a scene where Autje and Neitje are braiding their hair together and the camera is zoomed in close. The shot was so unique and subtly meaningful that I noted it down.

Jessie Buckley & Claire Foy Masterclasses in Character Portrayal & Development

Typically, movies that take place in a short window of time, like a few days or even one day, don’t do well for me. They often don’t offer enough context about the characters simply because there's not enough time to show them experiencing things outside this specific scenario. My feelings about Mariche evolved throughout the movie and my opinion of her changed by the end. The filmmakers revealed the triggers behind her strong and combative personality as they reveal things about her relationship to her mother, daughter, and husband - and they did it all through scenes of long conversations. 

Not once did I feel tired of these debates and monologues, or feel like they were not natural. They matched the urgency of the situation. The entire cast was great, but Jessie Buckley stood out to me for the complexity in her character, her humor, and it is probably my favorite of all her roles.

So much of her backstory is successfully communicated through emotion and connections to others in the group. It is critical to a story so dependent on dialogue to have a character like this. The complexity of Mariche makes her almost the antagonist, and he complicates the central conflict of the story, which is what should we do now? In some ways, the terrorizing men are just the backdrop of this story and the central narrative is unpacking each one of these women’s unthinkable trauma and progress forward.

Although Rooney Mara’s character, Ona, seems to be the center, or the “level-headed” point of view in between the more opposite ends of the spectrum of Mariche (Buckley) and Salome (Claire Foy), I thought Mariche is the one who overcomes internal change throughout the film. This made her the character I cared about the most by the film’s end, as well the elite acting performance of Jessie Buckley.

Claire Foy’s character, Salome, is easier to sympathize with from the beginning of the movie but we learn about her complexities not only through her protection of her children, but of her recognition of the new person she has become because of her instincts to protect. She has a trajectory that is more stagnant in development, but it’s easy to take her side even in her decisions that aren’t exactly pure. It makes me like her more. 

Processing Horrific Sins Through an Objectively Pure Moral Filter 

In this story, the dialogue is king. The conversations of philosophy and ethics are the through line and the arguments showcase the characters. Something the women all have in common is living deeply religious beliefs. This is in fact the only thing women in their colony are allowed to learn. They aren’t even allowed to read. 

The conversations and heated arguments center around their self-preservation matching up against several factors: fear of actions of the men, considering the moral repercussions of their religion, grappling with their true intentions, and weighing the consequences of the options they have. 

I enjoyed this philosophical aspect of the movie the most, but it only worked so well because the emotion brought on by the performances were effective too.

I highly recommend this movie but do want to re-emphasize that it is triggering subject matter.

Overall my rating: 8.3/10.

Related Reading: Coronado Film Festival Movie Review: Juniper