Women Talking

Sarah Polley’s Women Talking explores the horrible reality that many women face in isolated environments, including some religious colonies. The movie is based on the real story of women and young girls in a Mennonite Colony (an isolated, religious colony where men are entirely in control; it’s made to prevent any contact with sin), who are routinely assaulted in their sleep by the men of the village. They are forbidden to represent themselves in court, made to submit to their husbands, and beaten frequently. While the men are away on trial for assaulting them, the women are left to decide whether to leave, stay, or stand and fight. The women hold a vote to decide which route to take, which is ultimately split between staying and leaving. In order to solve the problem, a few women from each side of the issue are chosen to hold a discussion and reach an agreement.

One of the major conflicts centers around two young girls grappling with the heavy discussions around them. They act like what they are–children– throughout the film, presenting a simple, horrible fact to the audience: the children are victims too, they’re not mature, and they’re not able to be blamed for what happened. Numerous scenes show the true brutality of the assaults, including a woman waking up in a pool of blood in her own bed, thinking God is punishing her. One woman in particular fights to stay, but never gives a real motivation. She argues and insults the other women, who slowly persuade her by telling their stories. In the end, she goes home and endures her husband’s abuse so the other women can escape. Her character arc shows the audience an example of how serious the abuse is, and that it won’t change, no matter what. The gravity of the situation increases when it’s revealed that a woman committed suicide prior to the story due to the severity of the abuse. Another has to walk barefoot in the middle of the night for days, with her child on her back, to get to a doctor. The women can’t read or write, they can’t drive, they have no autonomy. The abuse these women face extends past physical pain, preventing them from leaving. When this is brought up, the women ask the male school teacher for a map and start plotting their course out of the colony. They decide that even though it will be difficult, they can’t allow their children to suffer any longer.

The cinematography in Women Talking is remarkable and shockingly intentional, down to every last detail. The lighting of the film is a paramount achievement in cinema culture, giving an eerie, yet hopeful atmosphere to the topic. Each prop and building is old and rusted, or the wood is dry and ashen. The precise, high-quality images that perfectly show every line on the characters’ faces lets us know exactly how they feel at every turn. Polley is able to call forth nostalgia, as well as a certain dream-like quality to her work through the yellow and blue tints onscreen. Women Talking is a work of art in every regard, from costumes to lighting.

The men in the film are important in the narrative as well, though this may sound counterintuitive. Polley makes the powerful choice to include a transgender man, as well as a male school teacher in the film, as the only male faces shown. The women are given the vast majority of the movie to speak, uninterrupted, about their experiences and plans for the future. When the teacher interrupts, he’s told to be quiet and listen. Polley’s decision to include him indicates her belief that men must also be part of the solution, meaning that men must be educated on feminist issues and advocate for them. The transgender character, who only speaks when he is addressed by his chosen name, is most likely meant to be a statement about the importance of being able to choose when you speak, and to only speak to those who respect you as a person. His experience with the violence reflects the reality that queer people are often mistreated and then ignored. Small, but crucial details about his character show Polley’s attitude towards the queer community; he’s kind to children, he has an actual personality aside from being queer, and he always offers to help the women. 

Today, we face a problem with women’s voices being taken away from their own issues. President Trump recently hosted a women’s health conference, without a single woman present. This is the second time he hosted such an event, and he continually surrounds himself with people attempting to strip women’s rights to abortion, safety, and even common medications like Tylenol. In 2025, we need to encourage female participation in debates that affect them, and let women speak for themselves.

I give Women Talking five stars.

Twelve Angry Men (1957)

Twelve Angry Men has been adapted from a play into a movie, which became a hardhitting classic. Regardless of which version you see, they have one major thing in common: twelve jurors are tasked with deciding the fate of a young man from Puerto Rico, charged with murdering his father. At the beginning, the Judge reminds them that a person should only be convicted if there is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. The movie very intentionally stays in black and white, despite color technology being available and somewhat popular at the start of filming. The movie is quite old, but it still leans into topics we debate about today, such as how to qualify a defendant as truly guilty.

At the start, all the jurors are locked in a deliberation room. They are distracted by their numerous plans for the day, as well as other frivolous things, clearly not taking the problem seriously. When they take the first vote for the unanimous decision, all but one juror votes to convict the boy. The other jurors explode in anger, but the 8th juror, who said not to convict him, claimed that he was unsure if the boy was guilty. The crime of murder could be punished with death, and the 8th juror said that a boy shouldn’t be killed over evidence with holes. Over the next few hours, he set out to systematically prove not that the boy was innocent, but that there was room for doubt in his guilt.

As the jurors slowly change their minds, one by one, it becomes apparent that all of them already believed he was guilty before listening to the evidence. One of the jurors was an immigrant himself, who changed his mind after another juror began insulting immigrants. The first to change his mind was an old man, who got tired of listening to racist remarks from the others. A few changed their minds due to pressure mounting on them from the others, but most were convinced by the 3rd juror bursting out in rage and spewing racist rhetoric. They all stand and leave him to sit alone, showing that he is isolated in his beliefs. 

It quickly becomes apparent in the film that each juror represents a part of the human psyche. Each position taken is supposed to reflect the human process of making decisions, and how we feel entitled to determine the fate of other people without having experienced their circumstances. We are allowed to reflect on our own thinking through the film, and consider how we discuss issues that don’t directly impact us. The film encourages us to have empathy and not to quickly assess the fate of others.

The movie’s main relevance today stems from the concept of innocent until proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. No child should be convicted for a crime that no one can even prove was committed.

I give Twelve Angry Men 4 stars.

Comparison

While Twelve Angry Men has a positive message, it is distinctly missing the voice of the character affected by the jurors’ decision. This can be interpreted as a depiction of reality, in which young people aren’t trusted to speak for themselves or make a defense. In addition, minorities face more discrimination than Caucasian people in America, so they are often accused of lying when simply defending themselves. This reflects the fact that the 8th juror is only deemed trustworthy when the majority of the room already agrees with him.

However, while we can see this as a metaphor in Twelve Angry Men, I prefer Women Talking due to its inclusion of the women in the decision making process. Spotlighting the people actually affected, forcing all other parties out, is a more effective way of spreading the message than through metaphor. It inspires me to watch more Sarah Polley movies, but also, to make sure that the perspectives of people affected by an issue are represented when discussing solutions.

Works Cited:

Chang, Justin. ““Women Talking” Explores Survival, Solidarity and Spirituality after Sexual Assault.” NPR, 20 Jan. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/01/20/1149753059/women-talking-review-sarah-polley. 

‌Ebert, Roger. “12 Angry Men Movie Review & Film Summary (1957) | Roger Ebert.” Rogerebert.com, RogerEbert.com, 29 Sept. 2002, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-12-angry-men-1957. 

‌Scott, A.O. ““Women Talking” Review: The Power of Speech.” NY Times, 3 Mar. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/movies/women-talking-review.html. 

The Shadow Children Series

Do you prefer a short but riveting story that will make you root for the hero more than ever? Do you love dystopian, high-stakes worlds where one mistake may cost you everything? The Shadow Children series may be your next read.

Welcome to the Shadow Children series! This series will capture readers on the first page, and keep them reading up until the last page of the last book. The series is incredible, best for children in 3rd grade and up. With short chapters and loveable characters, it’s worth reading!

The first book, Among the Hidden, follows a shadow child named Luke. He’s an illegal child, who was not supposed to be born due to the laws about having too many children. The Shadow Children's existence isn’t talked about as much as I would like, but one’s interpretation could be that they’re born because people want to have free will. 

 As Luke grows up, more and more people, known as Barons, move in. The Barons are exceptionally rich people who can afford almost everything. They aren’t an exception to the laws though. He’s no longer allowed outside, then he’s no longer allowed to be downstairs, until finally he’s no longer allowed to exist. 

Until he finds someone who’s like him. Soon, Luke’s willing to risk his life for a taste of freedom. In this book, Luke is wrestling with this question: are you willing to fight to exist?

No one shouldn’t be allowed to live because of factors outside their control. Neither should the government have a say of who should or who shouldn’t live due to their birth status. No one should have to fight to prove they are worthy of living.

The Plot

I was assigned this book in 3rd grade, and I ended up loving it a lot more than I thought I would. Luke is relatable! He’s kind and sweet, but like everyone, he has his flaws. He is incredibly anxious for himself, but once he’s locked in the attic to keep himself safe, he becomes bored and irritated. Like anyone would if they’re trapped in a room with nothing but the same books they’ve read three times over. 

Jen is everything Luke isn’t. Headstrong and careless with the rules, she’s a perfect foil to our protagonist. When Luke breaks into her house, her first instinct is to attack him rather than hide. Some may interpret that Luke would have gone and hidden, but Jen did not. She’s upfront and honest with him, almost a little too honest. She immediately figures out he’s a shadow child and accepts him as a friend. 

When he meets Jen, another Shadow Child, it’s a bittersweet moment. Even if he did break into her home. Both know that if they’re caught, they die. But Luke can’t stand to be alone with his thoughts any longer. Despite being in such a high-stakes situation, he’s willing to risk everything just to be with someone like him. Jen is welcoming him with open arms, knowing his situation, even if she doesn’t seem sympathetic. 

The conclusion is horrible, yet truthful. Luke isn’t ready or willing to fight yet, not like Jen is. Jen wasn’t prepared enough and put too much faith in people who were too scared to fight. We shouldn’t ever be scared to fight for our existence, but the truth is, some people are. We have to be able to bring courage to people as well, in the same way Jen brought courage to Luke.

Jen is the embodiment of fighting for basic rights, and in the first book, Luke is the embodiment of people too scared because of the consequences! Both people are understandable in this scenario. It’s a dangerous world, and Luke could easily get killed if he’s even seen. But Jen wants freedom. So does everyone. She’s brave enough to put her foot forward and try, even if she might fail. 

We should strive to be like Jen, especially in this day and age. Anyone who reads the Shadow Children series will see similarities to our world now. It’s also an amazing read that’s shorter than a lot of heavy-topic books nowadays. Everyone should at least give this series a try. 

My Rating and Commentary

I rated this series a 4/5. I took a point off for two reasons: I’m personally a huge fan of worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is explaining the world in the book, covering why everything is there, why some things are the way they are, and laws. That’s more on me, but why do people choose to have the shadow children? Free will? An act of defiance? I don’t know, because the book doesn’t explain it. Also, why did the famines happen? The book doesn’t go into huge detail with that either. Nitpicky, maybe, but I love explanations for things in books. 

The other was the fact that it switched point of view between four characters. This is a seven-book series–the author could have had each book have a different character narrating it. Going from Luke to Nina to Trey and back to Luke was jarring for me as a reader. This is a whole series critique, not an Among the Hidden critique. I loved Luke, and having two books with him being the narrator and then that aspect being changed? It was weird!

Onto my adorations of this series. I adored the characters. They all had reasonable explanations for their actions, and even the characters the audience is supposed to dislike I ended up feeling the most for. Actions were explained, you could root for the characters, and you never knew who was bad and who was good. The characters were complex and I loved it!

Another high praise from me is that there were developments for characters I never expected. Luke’s older brother, Mark, was mentioned a few times throughout the series. In the fifth book, Among the Brave, the whole book is told from the most anxious character in the series, Trey. Mark also gets a huge role in that book, helping Trey. They become one of the brave, giving both of them an entire character arc. Even the side characters get a main story, making it a well-rounded series. My favorite side characters are Trey and Nina!

Last but certainly not least, the plot twists. I couldn’t piece together the end of the book to save my life, but it was so fun when I got to the end. Bits and pieces are shown throughout the book, so someone who’s observant would be able to pick up on what the twists may be. It was so exciting for me to be blown away by how the plot went. 

The young make the changes here, and it’s amazing for that to be showcased realistically. They still need help, they still rely on each other, and they don’t face these things alone. I feel too many books show that children can make a change without anyone’s help but their own. It’s not true. Even a child from a crazy fantasy is going to need help eventually. I’m so happy that this series shows that relying on help isn’t a bad thing, especially if the kids ask for adults. This series will hold a place in my mind for the rest of my life–one of those rare gems that I don’t see talked enough about. 

We all love books, right? Or, if you don’t, you probably like stories. Stories are how we learn about the world, and can help us learn about ourselves. Those stories, those explanations, are what became the mythologies we know and love. Now they have become cornerstones of creativity; nearly every book or trope or overarching theme can trace itself back to those ancient myths.

Because stories are so important, one would expect an author writing a story for children and young adults to do everything in their power to ensure their book doesn’t negatively affect their audience. Many authors write about complex topics in simplified ways with simple themes, in order to introduce their young readers to these topics in a safe environment.

And yet, some authors go too far, twisting a good lesson into a bad one.

Such is the case for this book. Medusa, by Katherine Marsh, of the Myths of Monsters series.

Now, when I first picked up this book, I found the synopsis childish, though perhaps with a good message to teach young girls. The classic ‘You-Can-Be-Anything’, Girl Power themes that have existed in popular media for countless decades. I expected little going into this book. Despite my standards being lower than a professional game of limbo, it appears they were too high a hoop for this book to jump over.

Let’s start with the premise; Ava Baldwin is in seventh grade; she lives with her parents and brother, Jax (short for Jaxon); She feels immature and left out by her two best friends. After a boy in her grade bullied her, she caused him to freeze up. Fearing she may have caused what she thought was a seizure, she confessed everything to her mother. Her mother then immediately enrolled Ava and Jax into the Venetian boarding school she used to go to- Accademia del Forte (Latin for ‘Academy of the Strong’).

At the Accademia she meets Fia (another newbie), Layla, and Arnold (two second-former or second-years, what they call eighth graders). Ava discovers that the Accademia is run by the Greek Gods and that it’s for descendants of monsters. She also finds out she’s related to Medusa, the hideous gorgon. She meets Athena (who is a major jerk), and she and her friends find out the principal (Orion, the hunter guy who Artemis fell in love with) and most of the teachers are jerks. They discover that Medusa is nice, that she is a goddess descended from Zeus and Metis (making her Athena’s full-blooded sister) and that she is destined to overthrow Zeus one day, so he turned her into a gorgon and made everyone hate her. The school gets flooded by Poseidon, and Zeus holds a council to decide what to do with Ava and her friends. It ended in a tie because Athena wasn’t there so Ava lives another year. Ava, her brother, and her friends have to do community service (like organizing the library) in order to make it up.

And that’s it. That’s all that happens. That is how the book ends.

This book is a self-proclaimed ‘feminist’ book, but really this book’s ‘feminism’ is just an excuse for the main characters to get away with everything. Fia argues with and insults a teacher, unprovoked, over a ‘misogynistic’ statement. The book praises her for getting a demerit (essentially a strike, three demerits means getting expelled). Ava assumes Owen (the boy who bullied her, who she then froze accidentally) is misogynistic. While it may be reasonable to assume Owen is misogynistic if most of his victims are women, Owen only ever had one shown instance of real bullying, when he interrupted her and chose Athena as the topic of the project they were doing. Medusa does nothing to make the reader trust her, and yet we’re supposed to have faith in her immediately. The most ‘trustworthy’ thing she does is inform the protagonists that she only turns men to stone, when she could easily be lying! In the original myths, Medusa turns people to stone indiscriminately. Why would Ava, the protagonist who claims to have researched Greek mythology, take her at her word?

Inaccuracies are also prolific. Fia argued with the teacher, who just so happens to be the muse of history, over the story of the Titanomachy, the ten-year war between the Olympian gods and their titan predecessors. In the actual myths, both gods and goddesses participated. We’ve lost the epic play detailing what happened, but we have scraps and bits telling us the gist (basically what I’ve just told you). The goddesses Hera, Demeter, and Hestia played a big role, but this book essentially stomps all over that! From what scattered fragments we have of various plays we can piece together that it was the goddesses who convinced various titans to ally with Zeus, and it was the goddesses who smoothed out relations with the neutral titans and witnesses after the war. Clio is villainized for no reason! Clio, as the muse of history, is a goddess of inspiration. For some reason, she sucks up to Principal Orion when in reality it should be the other way around. It feels more misogynistic than feminist to have a powerful female figure bow down to a male that has nothing to do with her, and I fear she may have been included to serve as nothing more than a secondary antagonist for Ava and her friends, a mere obstacle to overcome in order to achieve their goals.

Another victim of this inaccurate mythology is Athena. The goddess of wisdom and war, more trusted by Zeus than her own brothers, his right-hand; Athena is a perfect goddess for a feminist book! However, instead of becoming a mentor to Ava as she is known to do for many mortals (men and women included, depending on the version) Athena is villainized. She’s the main antagonist of the book, sabotaging Ava every chance she could get. The only reason she stopped is because Hestia threatened her and Ava revealed the truth about Medusa’s lineage.

While we’re on the topic of that reveal, the third and final reason I despise this book; this book is so messy that it’s both rushed and drags on endlessly.

Ava acts incredibly childish in some parts (as is expected for someone of her age), and yet in others she figures everything out. Even then, her conclusions are so far-reached the audience can’t figure it out on their own! Part of the beauty of writing is figuring out each and every plot point, planting the seeds for the plot-twist for chapter 31 all the way in chapter 10! Part of the beauty of creating a world is laying out hints and clues to every twist and turn, giving your readers a shovel and a map to find the treasure you've buried! When a twist comes out of nowhere, and your readers can't find hints in the chapters they've read, then a twist doesn't feel shocking, it's unsatisfying at best and anger-inducing at worst.

The pacing is awful. Some parts drag on for ages, and yet others seem too rushed. It's hard to connect with the characters, I could go on and on but we’d be here all day. It’s a shame, really, since the author seems to be experienced and has managed to write good books before! This series is by far not her best work. It’s clear she has some good ideas, because the premise of this book is interesting! It reminds me of Percy Jackson, but with the spotlight on monsters instead of gods. This could have been a chance to spread the word about some obscure myths, maybe even instill a life-long love for mythology in a child as Percy Jackson did, but the execution was just awful.

Would I recommend this book? Surprisingly enough, while it is a horrible book, it is a very good example of what not to do when writing, so you should read it if you want an easy ‘A’ in a book-critiquing assignment. Otherwise I would recommend not wasting your money. 

Rating: 1.5/5. TL;DR There is much room for improvement, but the premise is interesting.