Adapted and directed by Sarah Polley, this timely and hard-hitting drama is a dialogue-driven passion play about a colony of women fighting back against the men who have been drugging them and attacking them for years. Rooney Mara and Claire Foy lead the cast and anchor the film with a depth and intensity that helps drive it forward—despite being little more than a two-hour discussion among women in a barn. At times the message feels heavy-handed (which may be what it takes for some in the audience), and a few of the cast can’t quite make Polley’s archaic-tinged dialogue sing, but there’s no doubting the film’s success as an important feminist message for our times.
4/5 stars