Among the parade of movies awaiting us in the new year, Women Talking looks set to join the must-see list. True to its title, Sarah Polley’s drama is an intimate portrayal of a group of women, well, talking – about their experiences of sexual assault, of gendered power imbalance, of their minds and bodies. Set in 2010, it stars the likes of Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Rooney Mara as women living in an isolated religious community, facing up to the abuse they’ve been subjected to by the men in their commune, and discussing ways of moving forwards.
For the new issue of Empire, we gathered together many of the women that made it happen – Polley, Foy, Buckley and Mara – for a deep-dive conversation about the film’s shattering themes, its unique creation, and what it means to put a film like Woman Talking out into the world. Find the full feature in the 50 Greatest Actors issue – on sale now, order online here – and read an extract below, with the director and stars reflecting on and redefining the idea of the ‘strong female character’ in relation to _Women Talking’_s display of unfathomable fortitude.
EMPIRE: You must have had to shoulder so much on a daily basis. I’m interested in what you think of the notion of the ‘strong female character’, as in Women Talking it feels like it’s about how much you can carry – pain, responsibility, in a literal sense children – without buckling under the weight, as opposed to some kind of sassy bravado.
Claire Foy: I viscerally hate ‘strong female characters’. It says, what, all other female characters are weak? You don’t separate men like that. They’re allowed to be unlikeable, likeable, strong, weak, scary, cuddly, all sorts of different things.
Sarah Polley: We’ve been foils for so long in movies about men. I think a strong female character is just a fully realised human being. It’s just sad how long we’ve gone with very few of those in movies, where we’re not a means to an end. A strong female character can take a million forms that don’t just look like a stereotypical strong man and a female body.
Rooney Mara: And she might not have strength at all!
Jessie Buckley: It makes me think of Shayla Brown, who plays Helena, Frances McDormand’s character’s granddaughter, who Sarah wrote a new role for. She said once with utter eloquence, “It takes so much strength and courage to stay and fight, and it takes so much strength and courage to leave, and it takes so much strength and courage to do nothing.” You’re carrying whatever you have to carry. Sarah allowed everybody to do that, in a really quiet and vulnerable but powerful way.
Claire Foy: This is the first film I’ve made where women are strong while not in a domestic setting. You usually see mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmas at the kitchen sink, in positions of importance. But this is basically the Senate, the Houses Of Parliament. These women are talking about the foundation of civilisation, about how they navigate the world as people and what is right and wrong.
Read Empire’s full Women Talking feature – with Sarah Polley, Claire Foy, Rooney Mara and Jessie Buckley talking about the powerful ideas of the film and their experiences of making it – in the Greatest Actors issue, on sale now and available to order online here. Women Talking comes to UK cinemas from 10 February.