arah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel is set in a remote Mennonite community that exists out of time and under its own jurisdiction, with its own rules and superstitions. For years, the nocturnal disturbances that left local girls and women bruised and bleeding were thought to be a result of divine retribution, demons, or “female imagination”; it was later discovered that their collective nightmare was, in fact, repeated sexual assaults carried out by men armed with animal tranquillizers, many of whom were brothers, cousins, or uncles of the victims. When one assailant is identified and threatened with a scythe, the perpetrators are escorted into the city by police for their safety, granting the women
