‘Talk About Women’ Review: Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jesse Buckley Lead an All-Star Cast in Sarah Paul’s Powerful Drama

“What follows is an act of female imagination,” reads the mosaic card at the beginning. women are talking. That’s an accurate description: the film is writer and director Sarah Paul’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel, which focuses on the female members of a Mennonite colony. But those opening words are also mockery and defiance: The women are struggling with a response to years of calculated sexual abuse, years in which the male leaders of their sect silenced their grievances and insisted that the horrors they experienced belonged to the realm. . Demons or “Imagination of a Wild Woman”.

At the heart of Polley’s intelligent and compassionate film is the belief that in movies and in life, words can be action, and for those without a voice, they can be revolutionary. The philosophical and sometimes faith-infused bent of women’s discussion can alienate audiences that don’t want to go there. For those ready to dive in, the thoughtful and well-crafted feature is a rewarding study that tackles not only the characters’ struggles but also the existential questions any modern woman faces in the patriarchal setting.

Toews’ 2019 novel was inspired by the horrific events in the Mennonite community in Bolivia, where women were drugged and raped for years in their sleep by a group of men in their neighborhood. The book revolves around the deliberations of the women in the haystack after learning the truth about their attacks. Their discussion was filtered through the voice of the only person they still trusted, Professor August, who was assigned to keep the minutes of their meetings, as none of them had learned to read and write. The portrayal of August de Paul, played by Ben Whishaw, is a particularly moving character, but the women’s voices drive the story unmediated, brought to life by a strong set of newcomers and established talent.

The film was shot by Luc Montpellier in widescreen with a saturated palette of sepias, blacks, grays and blues. This isolated place in the village has no name.

Over the course of a few days, men who have been arrested for rape must be pardoned or banished from the colony and therefore deprived of paradise. Women vote for three possible responses: do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. It’s an essential choice in how to handle any life crisis, but for people who have lived such sheltered lives, voting is an extraordinary task. The score is a dead end between the last two options, and the women of the two families are chosen to examine these options and make a decision.

Without all the men in jail or on bail, the neighborhood is transformed: the women are left alone. Going through trials they never imagined and realizing they are about to embark on a sacred task that will change their lives, they wash their feet before they speak. Soon, faith and temper collide as eight people representing three generations gather in the haystack. The youngest of them, Out (Kate Hallett), offers judiciously used narration, hinting at a future beyond this tipping point. Auje and her best friend, the slightly older Neige (Liv McNeil), tug at each other’s hair, play and moan back and forth, occasionally interjecting a witty, insightful word or two.

Thoughtful and beautiful Ona (Rooney Mara), who is pregnant as a result of her attack, imagines a society where women learn and participate in the decisions that shape society; She shines with serenity and idealism. Auje’s mother Mariche (Jesse Buckley) has drawn almost everyone in as a fierce fighter who is plagued by unspoken insecurities. Salomé (Claire Foy), who has already shown the courage to defy male rules and seek medical treatment for her sick child outside the colony, shows an anger less conflicting than Mariche, while Foy reinforces the maternal instincts of the person and the conscience of the injustice. Energy.

Teenager Mejal (Michelle McLeod) suffers from panic attacks and starts smoking after the attack. The two oldest women in the group, Agatha and Greta, are figures of fragile wisdom, played to perfection by Judith Ivey and Sheila McCarthy, respectively. The anger of women towards men is the awakening of an unspoken and aroused resentment; Children are another matter, and with just a few photos of their young faces, Paul asks us to consider how innocent children are raised by men who oppress and sometimes abuse women.

His script gives each main character a monologue. Frances McDormand, the film’s producer, appears briefly on screen as someone who can’t imagine getting off topic; There’s an untold story in the knife scars on his cheek; How the recognition of violence by women is passed from one generation to the next is discussed elsewhere in the story.

It’s Whishaw’s August, his undying love for Ono through friendship but not romance, which figures as the film’s angst. A former colony member whose family was expelled because her mother “questioned” the patriarchal restrictions of the community, she was sometimes so overwhelmed: “If I were married, I wouldn’t be,” Ono says after she suggests. They were married – he had barely finished his sentence.

The most fascinating thing about the story is that we see these women removed from marriage and domestic affairs (although the Spartan simplicity of their homes is noticeable). As they gather in this haystack, focusing on monumental questions of self-determination and self-liberation and asking essential questions, Paul’s eloquent dialogue draws on the source material and finds its own rhythm.

More important than who wants to stay and who wants to go is how the women’s interactions change each of them and how they find harmony, sometimes literally joining voices in restorative interpretations of traditional hymns. Under these conditions, “closer to thee my God” and quotations from Scripture may be a radical expression.

Throughout the film there is a score by Hildur Guadadottir (jester, Chernobyl) is a masterful blend of tradition and a sense of longing, and the inclusion of the Monkees’ “Daydream Believer” enriches the sequence starring the narrator, which is beautiful pop surrealism.

The Montpellier camera follows the colony girls as they roam the fields with a lyrical, childlike abandon. He captures the inner light of women, and he and Polly frame the women’s interactions with formal compositions that give them something historic and enduring. The world beyond them, seen through a haystack, is an impressionistic blur. What else could there be for people who were never allowed to see a map?