Films So Good

As we referred to our past article, it was a pleasure to see Sarah Polley in action again as writer/director in the feature adaptation of Miriam Toews’ bestselling novel Women Talking. The novel was named a Best Book of the Year By The New York Times Book Review, NPR.Org, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, Publishers Weekly and Time, among many others.

Except Frances McDormand – who was the first addition of the cast – production companies MGM’s Orion Pictures and Plan B Entertainment have set Rooney Mara (“Carol” 2015), Claire Foy (“The Crown”), Jessie Buckley (“Beast”) and Ben Whishaw (“A very English scandal”) to join her. Women Talking will be filming in the city of Toronto this month through to September.

The Plot

As the book’s official synopsis reads: “Eight women, all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their colony and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in, meet secretly in a hayloft with the intention of making a decision about how to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.

“They have two days to make a plan, while the men of the colony are away in the city attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists (not ghosts, as it turns out, but local men) and bring them home.”

The synopsis continues: “How should we live? How should we love? How should we treat one another? How should we organise our societies? These are questions the women in Women Talking ask one another.”