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Each day, women around the world endure abuse in silence, never standing up to their abuser or walking away. But in Women Talking, a community full of women who have suffered the worst kinds of abuse joins together to decide how to move forward after their abusers have been caught.
Women Talking gathers with a group of women from a close-knit religious community to make a difficult decision. For years, the woman have been drugged and assaulted in their sleep, but until one of the men was caught and named the other assailants, the women were led to believe that they were assaulted by ghosts. Now, they have to choose whether to do nothing, stay and fight, or leave the community. And with just a short amount of time to make their decision, three generations of women meet in a hayloft to weigh their options.
For most of the film, these women—and the one man who’s agreed to join them to take the minutes (Ben Whishaw’s August)—just talk. Each woman here has something to say about the matter—from the woman who’s carrying her abuser’s child to the woman whose young child has also been victimized. They discuss the pros and cons of each option. They talk through their feelings and their experiences. They debate and argue. They weigh the options based on their religious beliefs. And sometimes they’re able to laugh together, too. But while that may not sound particularly interesting, it’s actually quite captivating.
Through these conversations, viewers get to know these women. They’re strong and resilient. They’re hurting and angry. And they’re well aware of the challenges facing them. Women in their community aren’t educated, so they don’t know how to read or write—and they know nothing about the outside world. They don’t even know where they are on a map. But they know one another—and these relationships say so much about these women, their personalities, and their capabilities.
The stories here are heartbreaking—because although these characters are fictional, the experiences are all too real. And while this isn’t the way that abuse stories usually play out, it’s inspiring to see this community of women standing up for themselves and each other—and making their voices heard.
It may seem like just a film about women talking about an important topic, but Women Talking is more than that. It’s a tense and thoughtful film about these characters, their pain, their relationships, and, most of all, their voices—a powerful drama that’s sure to spark your own discussions.
Women Talking arrives in select theaters on December 23, 2022 before expanding to a wide release on January 20, 2023.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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