Sarah Polley’s Oscar-nominated film “Women Talking” arrived on DVD and Blu-ray this week, two weeks after its VOD debut on Amazon, iTunes and other platforms. It’s just in time to catch up with the drama before the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, when the film is nominated for best picture and Polley is nominated for best adapted screenplay.
“Women Talking” is Polley’s fourth feature film. She adapted the screenplay from the 2018 book by Miriam Toews. The film, described as a “work of female imagination,” is based on events that took place from 2005 to 2009 on the Manitoba Colony, a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women and girls were waking up to injuries from sexual assault with no memory of their attacks, and it was discovered that men from the colony were drugging and raping them at night.
In “Women Talking,” Toews, and then Polley, imagine a conversation between a group of the women from “the colony” who have to decide whether to do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. It unfolds over the course of about a day, when the attackers have been taken to jail by local authorities. Without the looming specter of the men in their community, the women debate their beliefs, experiences and fears, and ultimately come to a collective decision.
It’s a testament to Polley’s fantastic writing and direction and the caliber of the actors — including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley — that this film about a group of people talking in a barn is as riveting as it is. It is a moving and powerful examination of patriarchy and the way the most toxic elements are created, passed down and enabled in closed communities such as the colony, and it envisions a way out and a future for these women who have known no other life. It’s an incredibly worthy watch in any year. Rent it now on all platforms (or seek out the DVD/Blu-ray).
