Women Talking
There’s only been one showing of this film at the Guildford Odeon over a month after its release in the UK. On the rainy Tuesday night, I attended, the audience were mainly oldsters like me, not the type of oldsters you’d see at a screening of The Marigold Hotel but oldsters to be seen at Tar. That information, along with the fact that this film’s title accurately describes the film’s action, might lead you to expect this to be another one of those arty (or pretentious), independent films for which I have a weakness. Well, you’d be wrong – this is a tense, urgent film, with a powerful resonance for contemporary gender relationships. It gains added power from the fact that it is based on real events.
The film is set in a rural, isolated American community of Mennonites. They are a bit like the Amish, with their simple, agricultural lifestyle and turning away from many of the attitudes and accoutrements of 21st century life. This community is a theocracy and strict patriarchy. There is one problem in this new Garden of Eden, though, which is the catalyst for everything that follows in the film. For many years the younger women of the community have woken in the morning with bruises on their bodies and the realisation they had been violated; many subsequently became pregnant. The only possible answer was that the devil had assaulted them during the night. Now, however, there is a new answer: one of the community’s men was discovered attacking a sleeping girl; and it emerges he is not alone but one of several of the group’s menfolk who had been drugging the girls with animal tranquillisers and then systematically assaulting them sexually. As a result, all the men of the community have left with the guilty men for the two day journey to the city in order to post bail. Chillingly, they have advised their shocked womenfolk to contemplate and discuss how they will forgive the assailants.
This violation of the women’s bodies and trust is quickly sketched in at the start of the film. The women are used to be being led by their husbands and the community’s male elders but now have only God and themselves to guide them in their life changing next move. Their anger and betrayal lead them to settle on two options at odds with the option left them by the men: stay and fight to change things, or leave. At this point, the women choose a handful of representatives of all ages and status to talk through the two options and make a decision for them all. As they cannot read and write and feel they need a record of their discussions, they invite, August, the community’s schoolteacher played by Ben Wishaw. His subdued, empathetic demeanour is the result of his more ambivalent attitude to the community – after being exiled with his parents for their unorthodox views, he has returned to work with the children (a role looked down on by the menfolk in the community). Throughout the discussions that ensue in a large barn, we seem to witness events through his eyes.
Here we are at the heart of this film, therefore: the women’s representatives debate with passion, intelligence and urgency. The words eventually tumble out of them all, a release after a lifetime of being denied views and a voice. It is the young mothers played by Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley who, initially, are the most vociferous on either side of the argument. Their impetus comes from their care and concern for their children’s safety and future. Gradually, though, all the women explore their fears and, in the case of the older members of the group, their guilt. They begin to acknowledge a turning away from the realities of abusive domestic relationships and the way their faith has been used as a comfort and a smokescreen. As the return of the men approaches and the time for decision, there is real tension about what the women will do.
The theatrical structure of the piece is forgotten partly due to the wonderful cinematic depiction of this timeless, rural milieu and also because of the splendid cast – in addition to the two British actresses, Rooney Mara is a central figure supported by a range of American character actresses.
Religious faith is crucial in understanding the women’s compliance to the patriarchal community. It is, however, this element that created a little distance between me and some of the arguments passionately discussed in the barn. Nevertheless, in our modern world where there seems an increasingly urgent discussion of gender, the dangers of a type of masculinity and relationships between men and women, this film dramatically explores many of these issues. I recommend this film, wholeheartedly.