Meewella | Critic

According to P

Tag: Claire Foy

QuickView: Women Talking (2022)

“When we have liberated ourselves, we will have to ask ourselves who we are.”

Ona

Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel is a dour but moving experience, its desaturated melancholy swallowed by heavy blacks. Toews described her novel as an “imagined response to real events”, chronicling the women in an isolated rural religious community deciding whether to stay or leave after a series of rapes come to light — for women with no voice, merely making a decision for themselves becomes an act of defiance. Polley’s direction is restrained, not showing the violence but instead alluding to it through repeated recollections of the bloodstained aftermath. Women Talking feels theatrical in both the constraints of its hayloft setting and its near-exclusive reliance on dialogue. Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley and Claire Foy all excel in voicing varied aspects of the group’s response — thoughtful, angry, and fearful of change — though there is a definite artificiality to the debate with actors representing ideas more than fully rounded characters. Hildur Guðnadóttir’s gentle score colours scenes with a simple melody that coils itself around you, squeezing a little too tight. The biggest change in Polley’s script is a perspective shift: the book is narrated by August, a gentle man who attends the discussion to take minutes, and apparently Ben Whishaw recorded substantial voiceover before it was decided that this did not work in a cinematic medium. Instead, the voiceover — more commentary than narration — comes from the youngest of the girls, speaking to a child some time in the future. It further mutes Whishaw’s meek performance (“I want to help and I don’t know how”), but that is appropriate within an intentionally female space. Women Talking perhaps arrives a little too late in the #MeToo era and it asks rather than answers questions, but it is engrossing and thoughtful in its consideration of structural issues and religious belief without judgement.

8/10

QuickView: First Man (2018)

“When you get a different vantage point, it changes your perspective.”

Neil Armstrong

First Man should not be mistaken for a film about the Apollo programme; as its name suggests the biopic is focused solely on the contribution of Neil Armstrong, sidelining everyone else. The claustrophobic nature of spaceflight is realistically presented through tight shots that leave us gazing into Ryan Gosling’s eyes with a regularity that eventually becomes tedious (although some viewers may disagree with this assessment). This is combined with an interesting decision to shoot the moon landing with IMAX cameras. If seen in that format the larger screen is entirely unused outside of that 15 minute sequence. Although impressive, IMAX viewing for this alone is far from essential. Gosling’s portrayal is deliberately understated whilst Claire Foy delivers the film’s strongest emotional performance as Armstrong’s wife. The most surprising aspect is an effective exploration of traditional masculinity and the burden placed on men who are left unable to share their emotional pain, with resulting impact on their families. Ultimately First Man is overlong but satisfying.

7/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

Up ↑