Sarah Polley’s ‘Women Talking’ Wades Into a Mighty Discourse

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Review: ‘Women Talking’ is a poignantly felt, and phenomenally acted, meditation on questions without easy answers.

) is joined by her daughters Mariche and Mejal . Some younger women—children really, granddaughters of Agata and Greta—are present too, listening as their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers forcefully debate a major next move.

Polley calmly films this as one might a play, interrupting the proceedings on occasion for a cinematic bit of music or montage. Polley’s main interest seems to be in her actors, though, fitting as she was once a beguiling actor herself. For much of, this approach works well. The actors nimbly maneuver both the old-fashioned formality of the dialogue and the script’s swells of anger and loss with striking clarity and mettle.

Sometimes, though, the delicate rhythm of the movie is disrupted by monologue, or by point-making musing that seems as if it’s being addressed straight into the camera for the audience’s instructive benefit. Polley admirably allows her fine performers ample space to bringto life. But there are also the bigger needs of the film to be considered—sometimes Polley’s actorly generosity comes at a cost, when the film turns stage-y for a minute and we’re snapped out of its enveloping spell.

Also distracting is Polley’s choice to wash the film in a muddy and desaturated pallor. Of course, these dire matters need not be—and probably should not be—swaddled in false and diluting beauty. Some vividness, though, may have helped embolden the film’s conversation, giving it a more palpable presence.

Even with those dreary aesthetics, the film is poignantly felt. There is a credible tension between those who see leaving as life-altering defeat and those who think staying is, in essence, fatal. A gray area exists in between, too, whichteases out as it patiently listens to all sides and then gradually synthesizes these many ideas and opinions into some kind of communal agreement. A decision is made, which the film frames as probably the correct one.

 

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