A new trailer forSarah Polley’s acclaimed dramaWomen Talkinghas been released, and it poses a question for the women of a small, oppressive religious community - “stay and fight, or leave?” Based on real-life events, the bleak film centers on a remote Mennonite community where women are abused and raped consistently throughout several years with their claims of the violence always dismissed as wild and outlandish. They struggle to reconcile their religion after the non-stop assaults, losing faith in the community and their leadership for ignoring their plight. The trailer shows these women choosing to make a stand themselves and ultimately weighing the right choice between fighting or fleeing.
The opening shot of the trailer gives the feel that this is taking place in some dystopian reality as the women of the Mennonite community hide while a truck blares out for them to come out of their houses for the 2010 census. Everything feels oppressive as the narration says they are shamed for talking about their bodies and are being forced by their faith to forgive the men who’ve repeatedly assaulted them. Faced with the galling ask of being forced to repent for something that harmed them, they instead vote to revolt. They go over the various pros and cons of fighting and fleeing. If they stay, it means remaining in their homes and perhaps being able to protect their children at the cost of becoming murderers for ending the lives of their abusers. Fleeing, however, is no small task either. Whatever they decide, they face a tough road ahead as they’ll need to teach their children, who’ve been ingrained with the idea that men are more powerful than women, that there is room for a more equal world.
Polley’s film has made waves with critics for being able to weave the bleak and the hopeful seamlessly without softening the film’s edges. She thought deeply about its creation, mulling over the book of the same name byMiriam Toewsand everything it meant to her. She thought about how best to apply the story to film and how to really hit at the universality of its message, saying in a statement:
I imagined this film in the realm of a fable. While the story in the film is specific to a small religious community, I felt that it needed a large canvas, an epic scope through which to reflect the enormity and universality of the questions raised in the film. To this end, it felt imperative that the visual language of the film breathe and expand. I wanted to feel in every frame the endless potential and possibility contained in a conversation about how to remake a broken world.
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More Background onWomen Talking
Polley both wrote the screenplay for and directedWomen Talking, following up her previous acclaimed featureStories We Tell. She had a star-studded cast to work with in her latest, withRooney Mara,Claire Foy,Jessie Buckley,Judith Ivey,Sheila McCarthy,Ben Whishaw,andFrances McDormandall starring. McDormand also produced alongsideDede GardnerandJeremy KleinerwithBrad Pitt,Lyn Lucibello Brancatella, andEmily Jade Foleyall executive producing.
Women Talkingwill be in theaters just in time for the holidays on December 23. Check out the latest trailer below.
