There’s certainly no more aptly named film this year than Women Talking, directed by Sarah Polloy. Indeed, this film consists of women talking. If you want to hear them out, go see the film. If you want the dramatic elements that typically appeal to moviegoers, though, you may struggle to enjoy it.
Morality and aesthetics don’t always go hand in hand, and Women Talking provides an example of the two very much at odds. For instance, Polloy leaves entirely off the screen the character Klaus, the principal aggressor who has brutalized the women of a religious community. Such a directing choice is morally laudable: why should he get air time, given his actions? Wouldn’t that partly glamorize his behavior?
But aesthetically, the decision is unconscionable. Klaus may be monstrous, but he has set the entire story in motion. Eliminating him leaves us with no drama, no narrative power. Imagine if Shakespeare had decided that Iago didn’t deserve to be portrayed onstage—who would want to see Othello? What great story could withstand the removal of its primary antagonist?
I’m reminded of the recent Netflix series, Dahmer. According to its director and producers, the artistic aim of the show was to “decentralize” notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer—to put his victims at the center of the narrative, where they supposedly belonged. But the sad truth about Dahmer’s crimes is that dramatically, his victims aren’t at the center of the story. Heinous and pathetic though he is, Dahmer links his victims together. They hold no importance for us other than that they crossed paths with him. That makes him, unfortunately, the main character.
So Netflix’s effort was doomed from the start: victims’ families complained that, contrary to the ostensible goal, Dahmer had been glamorized. And they were right. Because the moment Dahmer appears, he inevitably attracts all the attention.
Women Talking seeks to rectify this problem by truly decentralizing its aggressor: by taking him out of the story entirely. But the experiment shatters the test tubes, because without him, there’s barely any story at all. Moral, yes; interesting, no. Such is the dilemma of the socially conscious artist.
There are other issues with this movie. The most impactful is that the women have been written as recognizable “types,” which makes them too one-note to believe in. The Fighter. The Sweetheart. The Troublemaker. The Matriarch. As a byproduct of this, the most likeable character in the film is…the only man in the movie, since he’s the only one who gets to have the kind of diverse and conflicting qualities that real people have. This disappointing backfire, in fact, often plagues movies about women having their own space. (See: A League of Their Own.) Having more characters of one gender can actually reduce the complexity of those characters, because it can leave each one with too few qualities to feel real.
As you can tell, I didn’t much enjoy Women Talking. But I’ll give it this: it’s unique. It represents the limit, in some ways, of morality-centric storytelling, the demand for which has obviously increased in the past few years. Maybe this kind of storytelling will become a dominant aesthetic going forward. But I doubt it. After all, few have seen Women Talking. Whereas, for example, Dahmer—that exploitative and immoral sleaze-fest—was the second-highest viewed Netflix series of all time.
–Jim Andersen
For more reviews, see my review of All Quiet on the Western Front