Women Talking was a tough movie to both watch and to review. If you haven't heard of it, it's based on the novel of the same name and follows a group of women in a religious colony who are constantly attacked and abused by the men in their community for years until one particular incident where someone is caught and finally sent to jail along with the other perpetrators. While the men are gone the women hold a meeting to decide whether or not to leave the community and strike out on their own, to stay and fight back against the abuse, or do nothing.
This is not a movie for a widespread audience. It's basically a one-location, very little action, "talky" type of movie that most will probably skip. Personally, I found the discussions intriguing, and actually did a slightly better job of presenting the different sides of arguments surrounding what is essentially the Me Too movement than what Tár or some other movies have tried to do. I say slightly, as there were moments where the arguments did kind of bend toward a more "preaching" stance instead of presenting the arguments and letting the audience decide for themselves. The process of actually writing out a set of pros and cons of all arguments was kind of an odd choice as well. I think framing the discussion from a religious perspective was interesting. Having been raised in a biblically-based household myself, I appreciated both the questions raised throughout, particularly those on the subject of forgiveness, as well as the framework in which those questions were asked. One question raised in the film was whether or not forgiveness that was forced out by someone else and not freely given was true forgiveness; as well as the question of whether or not one could ever forgive someone for such an act, or whether or not it would take time and distance in order to do so. None of these questions are easy to answer - if they ever truly could anyways - but the movie attempts to do so. The acts of abuse are shown onscreen, but only in brief flashes throughout and (mostly) not terribly graphic. I think I'd say this is a recommended movie, and I daresay an important movie to watch. I feel a bit weird using the phrase "I liked it" given the topic. However, with the subject matter the way it is, as well as how it's presented in more of a roundtable discussion style than truly a conversation on the subject (which isn't necessarily a bad thing btw), I'm not so sure of many people who would appreciate the movie. I would still encourage people to check it out, but keep that in mind.
