Women Talking

Movie: Women Talking

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay

How I watched: AMC

When I fell asleep: nah

When it had me: dropping truth bombs

When it lost me: a song cue

What systems does it challenge: Patriarchy, Religion

Content Warning: Sexual Assault, Domestic and Religious Abuse, Self Harm

Based on: Women Talking by Miriam Toews

I was raised with misogyny. It's baked into my bones. When I heard the title of this movie, I responded with the appropriate knee jerk reaction; "ugh, that sounds boring". Because women talking must be either useless prattle or a hyper-sensitive nag session. I see it in myself now and I am able to redirect my thoughts, but it galls me that my first instinct is to say the thing that makes me aligned with those who have more power.

The movie is an excellent argument against my learned reaction because it proves the importance of women talking. Women talking leads to catching predators, support and healing, expressing fears, processing emotions, planning for the future, envisioning a better world. Women talking is good everywhere but essential under a system of oppression.

The acting is searingly good, the movie clips along at a nice pace and we are afforded some wonderful visuals. However, the magic for me was in the nuggets of truth about sexual assault. One woman describes the crime against her as "a banishment from what's real" another claims that worse than the assault was that "they made us disbelieve ourselves." Trauma and betrayal are expressed her in poetry and in scalding honesty.

There are small callbacks to their assault; the severity of their experience is not downplayed but the viewer is saved from having to wallow in the violence and trauma of those events. Their is pain and confusion in the women's responses to their treatment but the focus if the film is forward looking, philosophical and honest.

The conversation covers a seemingly endless sea of angles on misogyny, rape and systems of power. It covers victim blaming and not-all-men and forgiveness versus revenge, anger, depression, helplessness and empowerment. And the note I left with was one of gratitude to have listened to women talking for almost two hours without interruption. They didn't have to face their attackers, suffer new attack, manage defensive responses, shield themselves from backlash, justify their accounts or modulate their tone to suit someone else. I just got to hear Women Talking and witness the importance of that simple yet radical act.

Watching people sit and talk is not exactly cinematic by design but somehow Sarah Polley makes it really work. The movie clocks in at under two hours and you know I love that! This would be a top pick for editing if it were up to me. It's not cutting tons of action but it is its own unique challenge and it was done well.