SPOTLIGHT December 2022: Sarah Polley, Actor, Author, Writer/Director of WOMEN TALKING
Everybody’s talking about Women Talking. Sarah Polley’s first film in a decade was a huge hit at the 2022 Toronto international Film Festival in September, immediately igniting awards predictions. It opens in limited release theaters this month, then opens around the globe in January 2023.
OF THE MOMENT
Women Talking is timely and transporting — some magic distillation into two hours of the entire fraught coexistence of men and women. Based on the Miriam Toews novel of the same name. the film concerns women in an isolated Mennonite sect who gather secretly to discuss their options after a series of sexual assaults within the community. Some of the women have been drugged and raped, and a handful of their men have been caught in the act — an act hitherto explained away as a demonic phenomenon.
The women meet to consider what they will do next: leave the community, stay and fight for change, or maintain the status quo and do nothing. What’s involved are both practical and spiritual matters; according to the tenets of their faith, they risk body and soul in considering change. In the course of conversation, the women dig into the structures that rule us all, and speak of intent, hope, anger and forgiveness.
Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Sheila McCarthy and Judith Ivey are among the women doing the talking, with Ben Whishaw in the role of August, a male ally who has agreed to take notes during their meetings. The women are not permitted to know how to read and write.
For all the olde-timey flourishes, the story is contemporary and based on actual recent events in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women Talking is more pro-matriarchy than it is anti-patriarchy, but it would be interesting to know how men respond to the movie.
“One of the things I’m really surprised and heartened by is that the people who come up to me sobbing the most are young men,” Polley said in a recent interview. “I’m thrilled to think that it’s speaking to them in some way. I think a lot of men seem to be coming to it through the perspective of August, which I find really interesting.”
Polley is talking more about “Me Too” and current events when she adds, “For a lot of really good men, it’s been hard to know how to deal with the feeling of wanting to help and not knowing how.”
WRITING HER LIFE
Women Talking is only one of the things Polley, 43, undertook this year.
Her best-selling memoir, Run Towards The Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory was released in the spring; the collection of six essays examines the psychological trompe l’oeil of memory and how and what we remember, even as Polley writes about various life experiences and the amazing strength of the female body. The title, Run Towards The Danger, is the key phrase to her recovery from a brutal concussion. Recovery and gathering strength are recurring themes in these tales of child stardom, family, loss, physical challenges and childbearing.
Polley is also finishing her first novel. Over the last 10 years, her work has been weighted to the writing side, work that fits well with simultaneously raising three children. Writing also happens to be the part of the filmmaking process she loves best.
“Everything hinges on the writing. I love being on set with people, but writing is where I definitely feel safest and most comfortable.”
There was some overlap between writing Run Towards The Danger and writing the screenplay for Women Talking.
“And these two things were dovetailing each other, and so they did speak to each other in some way, and they did start echoing and resonating with each other. In some way I think a lot of what I got out of the process in writing my book ended up in the film. And a lot of what I was discovering in terms of adapting Miriam’s [Toews] work helped shine a light on some of the things I was talking about in my book.”
FORMATIVE CAREER CHOICES
Her childhood is one of the things Polley talks about in her book. She was a child star, thanks to Canadian TV series including Ramona and Avonlea, and such features as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. It was often a rough ride.
At 18, Polley appeared in Atom Egoyan’s film The Sweet Hereafter marking a sort of beginning to her adult life as an actor.
She appeared in a handful of mainstream features — Guinevere, Go, The Weight of Water — and then made a conscious decision to step away from the star-making machinery. She quietly dropped out of the Cameron Crowe-directed Almost Famous, and the role subsequently went to Kate Hudson. Some years ago, she spoke about making that move, acknowledging that she knew what she was stepping away from.
“They were already booking the cover of Vanity Fair. It was a star-maker role,” she said. “I think those moments where you decide not to do something, in the face of nobody understanding that decision, are the moments that form you, that carve you out. It will always be a part of who I am, that I did that.”
(Polley “did that” in a vacuum — it was years before she ever talked about Almost Famous because she didn’t want to take anything away from Kate Hudson. Other people talked about it though, including Cameron Crowe.)
After that decisive moment, Polley continued acting, often in indie features (My Life Without Me and The Secret Life of Words for director Isabel Coixet, for example, Hal Hartley’s No Such Thing, Wim Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking and John Greyson’s The Law of Enclosures among them.)
CHANGING DIRECTIONS
She also began to explore the director’s role, starting to make short films (Don’t Think Twice; The Best Day of My Life; I Shout Love) at age 20. And she began perfecting the art of hiding in plain sight. Polley continues to live and work in her hometown of Toronto, where she can have an actual private life.
Her first feature, Away From Her (2006), was based on an Alice Munro short story and starred Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. The film earned Oscar nominations for Polley and Christie, and Variety immediately dubbed Polley one of 10 new directors to watch.
She likewise won awards and honors for writing and directing Take This Waltz (2011) and the documentary Stories We Tell (2012), and though she avoids the limelight, Polley will undoubtedly be at the Oscars in March with Women Talking.
Asked how she knew she could make the jump from actor to director, Polley said at once that she never knew — and still doesn’t.
JUST DOING IT
“I still feel like you’re trying to figure out if you can tell a story, and with what tools, and what people, and wondering all the time if it will work or not. I don’t think there’s ever been a moment for me when I think, ‘Okay, great, I can do this!’ but what has happened to me is that it’s okay if I don’t feel like I know how to do this, ‘cause nobody does. Those who claim they do are just fooling themselves or pretending — we’re all just wading through, hopefully having learned lessons from other films and figuring it out as we go along.”
Sometimes you can’t really know how to do something until you’re in the midst of doing it, she added. “It’s all a process of discovery.”
In making those first short films she learned a lot technically, mind you.
“In terms of the filmmaking process itself, it is really hard to learn anything outside the realm of actually getting your hands dirty and doing it and making mistakes and figuring out what you didn’t know and how to fill in those gaps.”
RETURNING TO DIRECTING
Polley said she was a bit nervous about returning to filmmaking with Women Talking after that 10-year absence. At the same time, she said, having children, “Put a lot of things into perspective for me. Unless you’re a doctor or a nurse, saving lives daily, the stakes of your work are extremely low compared to the stakes of your life with your kids. I felt way less anxious than I ever have, making a film.”
It was liberating, in a way, to have been away from directing for a decade. “It was like, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ and the worst that can happen is my life as it stands right now, without making films, which I’m really happy with. “I love writing, I love having a more reliable schedule with my kids — it didn’t seem like that bad a worst-case scenario, so it made me more courageous. I was willing to take more risks. Visually, I was willing to take more risks, wanting to create this heightened reality. I thought, ‘Why not just completely go for it?’”
WHY WE CHOSE HER
Sarah Polley is an iconic independent filmmaker who has throughout her career made choices that explore the lives of women and reflect her own experiences and feminist point of view. Keen insight and compassion distinguish her movies. Her work is authoritative and honest, and always gives audiences a safe space in which to contemplate the issues that impact their lives. We are glad to see her return to directing after a hiatus of 10 years and applaud Women Talking as an artistic achievement worthy of the awards buzz it’s receiving. — Liz Braun
