It was actress Frances McDormand who suggested the idea for this film to director Sarah Polley. Both found themselves on the desire to adapt the novel “What they say” by Miriam Toews, without knowing it.
The status of women in an isolated American community is at the heart of Women Talking which comes out on Wednesday March 8, International Women’s Day. The film was nominated for an Oscar in the categories of Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Sarah Polley.
Reader of the novel by Miriam Toews what they say (Ed. Buchet-Chastel), Frances McDormand proposed the production of its adaptation to Sarah Polley who also had the book in mind. Frances McDormand shares the bill with notably Rooney Mara and Claire Foy.
frozen society
In 2010 in the United States, in a religious community living as in the 19th century, a group of women of all ages took refuge in the absence of the men in a barn after repeated rapes. How to maintain faith in the face of such excesses? Where is the love ? Should we forgive or leave? All have a point of view that questions a society that has become threatening, violent and dangerous for their lives.
Sarah Polley sets her film in a Midwest where wheat fields stretch as far as the eye can see. A rurality cultivated by a community related to the Amish, for whom time stood still in the 18th-19th centuries. Women under patriarchal domination do not have the right to quote and are subjected to men with primary drives on a background of consanguinity. This impossible life emerges from the testimonies delivered by the women during secret meetings. It outlines a plan of escape for some, or resignation for others, in the face of what seems an inevitable fate.
The barn-agora
This camera in the barn, even punctuated by solar images and reconstructed stories, favors speech. The setting and the narration lend themselves more to a theatrical than a cinematic dramaturgy, at least as Sarah Polley does. Besides, isn’t the only man who attends the meetings acting as an ancient choir? The actresses pass the baton more than they dialogue. They expose stories and projects that share them between conservatives and progressives.
Sarah Polley films a congregation of women where a revolution is taking place. Their backward-looking lifestyle calls out at a time of #MeToo and the liberation of speech, but also of the feminicide that fills the columns of the newspapers. Inspired by a True Story, Women Talking transforms a news item into a question of civilization.
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The sheet
Gender : Drama
Director: Sarah Polley
Actors: Michelle McLeod, Liv McNeil, Kate Hallett, Judith Ivey, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Sheila McCarthy, Jessie Buckley, Ben Whishaw
Country : UNITED STATES
Duration : 1h44
Exit : 8 March 2023
Distributer : Universal Pictures International France
Warning: scenes, comments or images may offend the sensibilities of viewers