Talking "Women Talking"

 Upfront: I was not particularly looking forward to this film. It very literally looked bad - what is that color grading? The trailer looks terribly grey. And the marketing presents the film in a very "stage play" sort of way, threatening you with a movie shot in one location where people talk for two hours. I feel comfortable saying these negative preconceptions because I am so thankful that Sarah Polley's film is not that at all. My brain adjusted very quickly to the color tint, and the movie smartly picks its spots to introduce dashes of color and light here and there. It also sort of "works" as a "thriller", in the sense that it has propulsive energy and tension that I did not expect this kind of film to have ("Women Talking" is, of course, adapted from a novel and not a play). In short, it's a good script, which is probably a bit of a problem for the finance people as you can't convey a good script in a minute of advertising.

 These women talk about many things. Sometimes they talk about the plot of the movie: the men of the commune have been abusing the women of the commune, and they must choose between leaving for somewhere else or fighting back. This stuff is fine. What really appealed to me was the more philosophical things that the women talk about. Can man be nurtured out of their abusive nature? Is leaving considered a sign of weakness or simply the pragmatic option, ideologically? What authority do the leaders of the commune have to speak on God's behalf of who will be accepted into heaven? Sarah Polley doesn't really answer these questions. That's fine by me - more to think about. You could say a large part of the film hinges on optimism that young men can be taught better outside of the commune, and addresses the fact that some young men won't want to be taught differently, but in a way that carefully asks-while-not-answering the question of whether it's possible to fix the whole issue. 

 Sometimes a man talks. Ben Whishaw is here as the poster man for "Not All Men". Sometimes that plotline is a bit annoying. I know that not all men are abusive, and the movie has no need to stop dead in its tracks to clarify that. To me, that's preemptively responding to bad faith criticism that isn't worth responding to. But the specific place that the Whishaw subplot goes is poignant. It almost becomes its own film, about forbidden love and making unbearable sacrifices for the greater good. Whishaw being great in the role helps. My favorite performance by far was Claire Foy, as I suppose the most conservative woman of the bunch, a mother entirely motivated by protecting her child from further harm and sincere religious faith. That internal struggle I feel is stronger than the external struggle personified by Jessie Buckley. The film's biggest issue in my opinion is how the Buckley character is handled. She is the most overtly angry of the women, who confusingly is also the first to clarify that not all men pose an issue, even though she is the only person we see get angry with Whishaw. Unlike Foy, she lacks any firm beliefs to go by besides wanting to fight back on the base level of wanting to fight, and so we have a character who spitfires disagreement for the sake of it. Maybe a film that's mostly monologued debates needs someone to provoke a debate like that, but I didn't really buy it as real (a particular note: the eye makeup that the film brings out for her last scene is marvelous. That sure is a thing I bought as real). At least the movie is thoughtful. Thoughtful is a much higher bar than sharp and well-acted.