At the last minute I decided to bail on last night’s (6 pm) screening of Sarah Polley‘s Women Talking, an adaptation of Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel about eight Mennonite women confronting a horrific pattern of sexual assaults within their community. Because of the all-female ensemble factor (except for the allegedly wimpy Ben Whishaw character) and an allegedly gripping feminist current, Polley’s film is being hailed a Best Picture contender by a fair number of award-season sniffers (including Variety‘s Clayton Davis).
On the other hand THR‘s Scott Feinberg has derisively tweeted about the Telluride air being filled with “hyperbole”, a friend whispered to me last night that I’ll “hate it”, and another friend joked that Polley’s film is “strongly, almost hilariously anti-male.”
I’ll be catching it either Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. If it’s good, I’ll say so but not because I’m down for #MeToo flicks as a general rule. Never trust the in-the-tank crowd. The only people who count when it comes to honest assessments in this realm are independent straight shooters, or persons of a rare stripe.
So instead of Women Talking I caught Ryan White‘s Good Night Oppy, which had been strongly recommended by a certain seasoned columnist. I’m not saying I was sold a bill of goods, but the columnist did oversell it. Oppy is a decent-enough, family-friendly NASA heart doc about two Mars rovers (Opportunity, nicknamed Oppy, and Spirit) Mars rover who explored Mars for nearly 15 years. It’s basically about parenting, and particularly the pride that sometimes comes with that. It’s a good film but calm down.
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