I have found it! I found the feminist pretension! Yes, after discovering some of this year’s award contenders have pulled back to a modest social medium, combined with how Velma is getting roasted for mistaking a social stance with being obnoxious, we have Women Talking to knock down my pins of content in a tantrum. I have been running out of theatres to avoid trailers for Women Talking, waiting for the movie to serve it to me the way it intended, knowing I’ll definitely be seeing this movie due to its Oscar nomination, and having the faith that Francis McDormand and Jessie Buckley wouldn’t steer me wrong – but all that preparation has left me blindsided, and huffy as I endured. Now, it goes without saying that the criminal situation referenced as the catalyst for this movie’s events is reprehensively despicable, but as the movie is gratefully transparent in being a ‘feminist imagining’ of resulting conversations, it’s ideas and technical execution are open to criticism. I’m also fully aware that this movie isn’t looking to me to be its primary adjudicator of worth and I respect that, but I believe in all voices having a place, I paid my money, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to interact with this responsive writing piece any further…
After a series of immoral and cruelly calculated attacks on the women of a colony, and by a sector of their own men, a female collective is selected to debate a course of action moving forward. The male superiors, forever offscreen, have judged that the women must forgive the male perpetrators and carry on with their chores, as the only means of being accepted by the grace of God in heaven and later in death – most of the women agree this is not good enough, and few are certain they cannot do this. So, this leaves the women of this colony with three choices. Stay and do nothing. Stay and fight the men for equal power and justice. Leave. In Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, a debate takes place from all angles, with each woman expressing a different physical and social position on the violating assaults, intensified by the tragedy that this corruption might see them displaced from their homes.
Remember Promising Young Woman? Remember how the exhilarating opening scenes set a scenario of the specific behaviour that the movie was out to condemn? There’s an old rule in cinema which is ‘show, don’t tell’, that Women Talking means to maneuver with vague voiceover and brief glimpses of the inciting incidents, leaving it up to the women to slowly fill us in on the facts of the situation, which I found detrimental. The first act is rough at setting the scene, even down to withholding vital information as to the time period and location that these events occur – I firstly assumed that this had to be the 1700s, and realised I was wrong once August (Ben Whishaw) starts talking about what he learned at university about WWII – it then takes a random censes collector to confirm it’s 2010, which would be a clever way to trickle context, if it didn’t come so terribly late. From there, I went the whole movie under the notion that these people were Amish, when a quick skid through the source material after the screening told me that Women Talking was first a fictional novel based on true crimes that occurred in Bolivia. A Mennonite colony, nonetheless, and when this impression first came to me, I’ll admit I thought it made the movie more interesting, but also more egregious, for maintaining a purpose to discuss these big gendered and social issues in a culture that isn’t even ours 🤨 I think this movie is banking on us accepting that these women, this vile mistreatment of women, and their conclusions, could apply universally to any given time or place, and that’s simply a leap too big for me to take, resulting in this movie’s conversations leaving me very cold. Moreover, every time the women laugh it’s uneasy – for such solemn and serious discussions, the tension lifters need to be on point, and they’re horrible. For one of the tonal shifts to be, ‘I think I’m dying’ into ‘no, your glasses are dirty’ is just comedically void, and as awkward in transition as Lady Thor’s cancer revelations in the slack Thor: Love and Thunder, which I also potted vigorously. I’m glad Mariche (Jessie Buckley) finally called out the fraternity for laughing at moments that weren’t funny – thanks, Jessie Buckley! I’m sure there’ll be some feminist theory out there that I must have a childish sensibility, but thank goodness for the adolescent characters who did well to reflect my audience interaction with this movie, maybe more accurately than the movie intends – I sighed at one moment early just before one of the children was next to sigh 😪
I think I’ve made it clear previously that Jessie Buckley is my favourite actress right now, but she’s got a type, doesn’t she? Downtrodden woman who’s going to turn that scorn into feminine rage. And the reason she’s got a type is because she plays it so well 🙂 I think it’s neat that she’s been cast beside the two English interpretations of Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, in Rooney Mara and Claire Foy; a character overtly forthright in her femininity too. Rooney Mara has always struct me as a very contemplative individual, who sends a sharp message with her role selection; I admire her greatly, and this may be the most I’ve enjoyed Claire Foy too. But don’t forget, Women Talking is produced and brought to us by the current Queen Bee of Hollywood, Francis McDormand – she’s not afraid of playing a tough old gal when need be herself. McDormand’s small role sort’ve acts like she’s setting up these talented ladies to metaphorically take charge, and take charge they do. I also want to mention Sheila McCarthy and Judith Ivey who are an absolute credit to this movie, and Michelle McLeod, as she’s the only adult I’d leave out otherwise. This is a fantastic cast, and extremely well-acted across the board; it’s just the ideas and direction of the premise I’d prefer to challenge in real time. Oh, and lastly, but not least, with recognisable roles in James Bond and Mary Poppins Returns, this is the best of Ben Whishaw, which is a little counterintuitive considering the subservient simp he plays… more accurately, I think most men would agree with his character’s position, but want a bit more agency than he displays. I had to laugh at the end when, after sacrificing his future, August says he loves Ona (Rooney Mara) only for her to NOT SAY IT BACK! Then Agata (Judith Ivey) says, ‘she loves you. She loves everyone’, which is as if to say, ‘she loves you, but you’re not special’. Poor fella.
Alright, let’s nitpick this apart – how do these women not have a word for rape? And even if not, the label of a ‘feminine attack’ would pretty much sum up the situation well enough to discuss. In the movie’s defense, Claire Foy’s character has a pretty solid spiel outlaying the pain and nature of the attacks, but for a long while, the movie is very coy about it. From a production’s perspective, I hypothesize that the movie wanted to avoid saying ‘rape’ repetitively, because it either might be triggering, or lose its inferred revulsion if stated too frequently, but trying to pass it off as ‘the women don’t know what rape is’, is a little on the nose, is it not? Oh, but it’s a foreign culture, so it’s not for me to question, although it’s got to be quite niche and hardly universal. And, although it’s a blight that the men make all the rules – a cultural stance that’s never flown in my lifetime – the men still have rules, and these attacks are a violation of their rules. What was their exact response? At least strong enough to initially lock these perpetrators up. Who were the attackers in relation to these women? Were any of them sons, or brothers, or fathers? What was the men’s response in relation to the governance that permitted these attacks to take place? Okay, they’ve decided that, practically, the women should forgive the men and move on for their clan’s prosperity, but are there thoughts of changes or further safeguards from the rule of men to prevent these attacks ever happening again? Were any of these questions ever addressed by the movie? I’m also a bit miffed by the idea that this isolated community can send their men to a state jail in 2010, and not bring about a police investigation as to why that is. This colony went into town and just said, ‘we’re having a domestic squabble, can we borrow your jail for a couple of nights? No need to worry about the crimes, but we’ll pay bail’. Oh, but that’s right, police are all bad guys right now in US media, so why would they investigate?
This movie also reminded me of one big problem I had with a movie I didn’t discuss on Today Junior, but I’ll briefly discuss here now, so spoilers for The Woman King. Mega points to The Woman King for depicting an African perspective on slavery, which was a side of history that I had never seen before and found illuminating. But being that it was a movie, it fell into generic movie traps, with scenes where the slave extras acted like voiceless, decorative, plot-driven NPCs… sort’ve like slaves, which is a very tacky oversight when one of your movie’s main intentions is to depict slaves not as a commodity, but as people. I understand Women Talking is about communicating feelings, hurt and rage, and I can’t fault it when it does, but to sacrifice context to elevate those emotional judgements and then aim to link them on a macro level is disingenuous. The women themselves come up with conflicting philosophies to inform different actions they may take, so how can I put a full sympathetic value on their words without all the relevant information present? I found this premise extremely worthwhile, but in execution, annoyingly pretentious, and I take next to nothing academic away from what I might consider narrowminded rot. But you know, and I’ll remind myself, that this movie isn’t for me – it’s a shame that it doesn’t pull me onside in what it is adamant is a serious plight for all women, like movies like Men or Promising Young Woman do, but if there’s a budding or scorned lady out there that can use this movie’s discussion as a starting point to delve somewhere deeper, then bully for them. I will be looking into what more prominent female movie reviewers are saying about Women Talking, thirsty for their takes.
2.0
P.S. Rooney Mara’s Ona says a lack of love leads to such violence, which is the final assertion in Men too by the way, but this is the first time I’ve considered that this sentiment could extend to a woman’s response to life as well; belligerent and ignorant in responding to animosity and unmet expectations equally.
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