BRAUN: Sarah Polley’s extraordinary new film, Women Talking, a sure bet for Oscars

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Sarah Polley haș long been one of Canada’s best-kept secrets.

That’s over.

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Polley’s first film in a decade, Women Talking, has everybody talking — Bette Midler tweeted about it last week saying it was not to be missed:  “So moving, so beautifully shot, so much power and thought. GO!” 

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A deeply affecting look at the fraught coexistence of men and women, Women Talking is based on the novel by Miriam Toews.

The story is set in a Mennonite community, where the women must decide their future after a series of sexual assaults. Women Talking stars Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, Sheila McCarthy and Ben Whishaw. It’s in theatres Dec. 23.

Polley, 43, was a child star, thanks to Canadian TV (Road To Avonlea) and such features as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. At 20 — and a respected actor — she began to explore filmmaking.

She was 27 when her exquisite first feature, Away From Her (2006) was released. That film was based on an Alice Munro story and starred Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent.

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It earned Oscar nominations for Polley and Christie. She likewise won awards for writing and directing Take This Waltz (2011) and Stories We Tell (2012).

As for Women Talking, it was the most talked-about movie at TIFF. The Oscar buzz started immediately.

How did Polley know she could make the jump from actor to director?

“I didn’t know,” she said in a recent interview. “I still don’t know. I still feel like you’re trying to figure out if you can tell a story, and with what tools, and what people, and wondering all the time if it will work or not.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a moment for me when I think, ‘Okay, great, I can do this!’ but what has happened  is that it’s okay if I don’t feel like I know how to do this, because nobody does … It’s all a process of discovery.”

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Women Talking got two Golden Globe nominations last week, but the movie isn’t Polley’s only achievement this year.

Her best-selling memoir, Run Towards The Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory, was released in the spring; the collection of essays examines memory, life experience and the resilience of women.

Some of the themes of the book and the movie overlap. Women Talking centres on the women finding a way to escape sexual assault; Run Towards The Danger includes an essay on Polley’s own alleged assault at the hands of broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi — she was 16, he was 28 — years before he was publicly accused of sexual assault by several women.

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Polley was born in Toronto and still lives here, perhaps as part of her decision to avoid celebrity.

She was 11 when her mother, Diane Polley, died — something she writes about in Run Towards The Danger — and in many ways the filmmaker was left to raise herself, living independently by the age of 14.

As a teenager Polley was on an A-list trajectory, set to star in the Cameron Crowe-directed film Almost Famous.

She decided not to do the movie. She’d been assured it would be career gold — as it was for Kate Hudson, who then took the role — but Polley stepped away from the entire Hollywood scene.

She did smaller indie films instead.

Nobody understood why she did it, “but those are the moments that form you,” Polley has said. 

“It will always be a part of who I am, that I did that.”

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For several years Polley’s work has been mostly writing. It fits well with simultaneously raising three children and it’s the part of filmmaking she likes best — “Everything hinges on the writing.”

Raising children has put a lot of things into perspective for her, Polley said, and so she wasn’t worried about returning to filmmaking after a decade away.  

“It was like, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ The worst that can happen is my life as it stands right now, which I’m really happy with — only without making films. It didn’t seem like that bad a worst-case scenario, so it made me more courageous.

“Visually, I was willing to take more risks … I thought, ‘Why not just completely go for it?’”