Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival last month, appeared poised to compete with the other major #MeToo-inspired drama, She Said, which is also set to release this year (and also produced by Brad Pitt’s production company, Plan B).
Francis McDormand, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw, and Jessie Buckley star in the Mennonite drama.
The first trailer for Women Talking, a festival favorite, is emotional and somber
Women Talking, based on Miriam Toews’ best-selling novel, follows the lives of several women in an isolated Mennonite community.
Victims of numerous sexual crimes committed by men in their community, the women gather to decide whether to remain silent, fight back, or flee.
The film will take a unique approach to sexual assault.
“Though the backstory behind the events in Women Talking is violent, the film is not,” Polley explained. We never see the violence that the women have experienced. We see only short glimpses of the aftermath. Instead, we watch a community of women come together as they must decide, in a very short space of time, what their collective response will be.”
For the film, Sarah Polley assembled a formidable cast. Rooney Mara, Clarie Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw, and Oscar winner Frances McDormand star.
However, based on the trailer and synopsis, it doesn’t appear that Ben Whishaw will be reprising his role as Paddington in this one.
Women Talking was a crowd-pleaser at both the Telluride and Toronto International Film Festivals.
It took first runner-up for TIFF’s coveted People’s Choice Award, a frequent predictor of Oscar frontrunners and winners, and Sarah Polley was one of three Silver Medallion Tributes awarded this year at Telluride.
Women Talking will be released in limited release on December 2 and will be released in wide release on December 25.
