The women of 'Women Talking' react to taking festival season by storm
TELLURIDE, Colo. — Frances McDormand, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and other actors in the ensemble of Sarah Polley's extraordinary drama "Women Talking" were walking into the Werner Herzog Theatre for a post-screening Q&A on Sept. 4 just as a few members of the audience were leaving the venue. A friend of Buckley's spied the actor near the entrance and embraced her, sobbing. They clung to each other for nearly a minute.
"Never had that happen before, nope," Buckley said later, still feeling the moment deeply.
It's likely to occur again, given the film's thoughtful, moving examination of faith and forgiveness, of women coming to terms with trauma and debating how to move past it — if that's even possible. Adapted from Miriam Toews' 2018 novel, "Women Talking" centers on the women in an isolated, fictional Mennonite sect who have been drugged and sexually assaulted. The women and girls must decide whether to stay and forgive the men — the only way, they're told, that they can enter the kingdom of heaven — or stand and fight the men. Or pack up and leave the only home they've ever known.
