The Best Movies of the Year: Women Talking and The Monkees Song that Steals the Show

The women of Women Talking have a lot to say. Sarah Polley’s masterful adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel offers a space for ideas and rage to its ensemble as well as its viewership. Inspired by a true story, the drama details how a group of women in a cloistered Mennonite community debate their futures. After discovering that every single one of them has been drugged and raped by a group of men in their village, they must plot for what’s next. Do they stay in the only home they’ve ever known and continue life as usual? Do they remain but fight for change? Or do they leave, walking into the vast unknown of a world they are painfully unprepared for?
Salome (Claire Foy) is desperate to leave, regardless of the consequences. Scarface Janz (a cameo from producer Frances McDormand) recuses herself from the discussion early on, believing that their duty to their families and faith requires that they forgive their attackers without a second thought. Ona (Rooney Mara) acts as a mediator of sorts, a grounded but optimistic devil’s advocate who nonetheless knows the real stakes at play. She has been made pregnant by one of these rapes and it is her child’s future she must consider.
It is not an easy decision to make, not for any woman but especially dozens who cannot read or write and are smothered by trauma. In the barn where the women’s unofficial representatives gather to make their choice, this is as close as they’ve had to a safe space their entire lives. The men have gone to town to pay the bail of the rapists, leaving behind a moment of matriarchal bliss. They have a kind of freedom, albeit one smothered by caveats, that is rare—near unheard of to them. And then there is an unexpected intrusion from the real world.
A census taker drives through their small town, his rickety car as modern as anything most of these women have ever seen. Everyone flees into their homes, resistant to this visitor’s intentions. To draw attention, he blasts a song: “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees. It’s cute, unthreatening, an instant earworm. How could anyone be intimidated by a simple love song? It’s not intended to scare, but to entice these women to talk to the outside world, something they’re not yet ready for. Their entire debate centers on whether they can and should embrace a future they’re utterly unprepared for. It’s doubtful they even know what a homecoming queen is. Such a silly song becomes an almost unsettling jolt of reality.