Film Review: Women Talking & Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Women Talking. And Singing.

Reviewing Women Talking and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

By Marc Glassman

Women Talking

Sarah Polley, director and script based on Miriam Toews’ novel

Starring: Rooney Mara (Ona), Claire Foy (Salome), Jessie Buckley (Mariche), Judith Ivey (Agata), Ben Whishaw (August Epp), Frances McDormand (Scarface Janz), Sheila McCarthy (Greta)

Art can come as a response to awful things. The history of opera is replete with dreadful plots, which magically get transformed into beautiful melodies and memorable characters. How many great films and books have come out of the Holocaust? And there’s no doubt that tragedies have motivated dramatists from Shakespeare to O’Casey to Arthur Miller to write their best works.

So it is with Miriam Toews, the Canadian novelist, who left the Mennonite Church and community when she was 18 but is still deeply interested in what happens to them. She became fascinated by a truly awful account of seven Mennonite men in the Manitoba Colony located in rural Bolivia who were convicted of raping 130 of the women in their community after drugging them with animal anaesthetic. The effect of the drug not only rendered the women powerless to resist but also badly affected their memories so that they felt that they had suffered nightmares and couldn’t be sure what had happened. It took years for the women to piece together what occurred and even more time before the men were eventually convicted and sentenced to 25 years each in prison.

Toews took this true tale and transformed it into her acclaimed novel, Women Talking, which has been adapted by Sarah Polley into this compelling film. Set in a fictional Mennonite town, it takes place over two days while the men have left their rural lands and gone to the city to arrange for bail for the accused (but not yet tried) rapists. While the men are away, eight women, from two families, meet in a hayloft to discuss what to do next. 

The drama in this film is based almost completely on the “talking” the women do over this fraught 48 hours. They realize that they have three options: to do nothing, to stay and fight or to leave. There are valid reasons for all three so the debate couldn’t be livelier. Polley has chosen a sensitive cinematographer, Luc Montpellier, to lens the scenes in a burnished twilight, perfectly appropriate for the long philosophical discussions taking place. 

Polley’s casting is impeccable: Claire Foy as Salome, the one who figured out that her three year old had been raped and attacked the men with a scythe; Rooney Mara, as Ona, Salome’s older sister, who is unmarried and now pregnant; Judith Ivey, as their mother, Agata Friesen; Jessie Buckley, as Mariche, from the Loewen family, trapped in an abusive marriage; Sheila McCarthy as Greta Loewen, her family’s matriarch; Frances McDormand as Janz, who exits the discussion, deciding to stay. Each is excellent: this is a commanding group of actors. Joining them, in order to take notes and help them, is Ben Whishaw as the schoolteacher August Epp who adores Ona. 

Even in a novel, that’s quite a set of characters but Polley’s cast is up to the task of personalizing themselves and the on-going debates. Lots of questions arise. How can you maintain faith in God and religion after such appalling attacks? On a more practical level, can they still live with men after what has happened? If they decide to leave, should they take the boys with them? And if they leave the community, will the women go to Heaven? How will they live in a prosaic sense, if they have no lands?

Women Talking is a truly unique film. This is a work of introspection, of examining one’s deepest faiths and convictions in order to decide how to move forward. It’s a story of a community and how it can survive or, by breaking apart, possibly become something better. In a medium that generally involves action as the base from which everything takes place, this film places its precedence on discussion. 

I urge our audience to see this deeply intelligent film. You may love it. You may hate it. But you won’t forget it. 

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Kasi Lemmons, director

Anthony McCarten, script

Starring: Naomi Ackie (Whitney Houston), Stanley Tucci (Clive Davis), Nafessa Williams (Robyn Crawford), Ashton Sanders (Bobby Brown), Clarke Peters (John Houston), Tamara Tunie (Cissy Houston), Bria Danielle Singleton (Bobbi Kristina Brown)

Whitney Houston’s life is the classic show biz tale of a youthful triumph undone by an excessive lifestyle leading to a tragic conclusion. It’s what happened to Elvis, the star of another big biopic this year, and so many others, from Hank Williams to Judy Garland to Amy Winehouse. The appeal of such stories is enormous: we can enjoy the wonderful music and be moved by the inevitable decline when a lethal combination of alcohol, drugs and terrible love affairs results in a too-early death. In a way, these tales may reassure a huge audience, which will never reach the heights of their stars but won’t die young either.

Whitney Houston’s life seems predestined. Dubbed “The Voice,” she was born into a family of great vocalists. Her mother, Cissy, was the lead singer of The Sweet Inspirations, who famously backed up Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, David Bowie, Linda Ronstadt and dozens of others. Whitney’s cousins include Leontyne Price, Dionne Warwick and Dee Dee Warwick; her relatives encompass NBA basketball players, acclaimed abolitionists and civic administrators. She sang gospel from the time she was a child and worked with her mother as a vocalist while still a teenager. If anyone was born to sing, it was Whitney Houston. 

Kasi Lemmons, one of the preeminent Black female directors in the U.S. (Eve’s Bayou, Harriet), has fashioned a straight-forward biopic that emphasizes big musical scenes, which almost always feature Houston’s fantastic voice convincingly mimed by Naomi Ackie. A talented British actor, Ackie can sing well, too; in fact, she nails an early scene when the young Whitney unwittingly auditions for the legendary producer Clive Davis at a nightclub gig. That scene, famously told and retold throughout Whitney’s career, wasn’t recorded so Ackie gets to show off her own vocalizing, but mainly we get to relish in the great Houston voice singing everything from “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” at a glittery music event to “I Will Always Love You,” from her hit film The Bodyguard to the “Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl. 

Ackie has to show off quite a range in the film, from the optimism and arrogance of Whitney’s youthful successes, beating the Beatles and Elvis for most #1 hits in a row, to fighting her manipulative father for control of her company to battling the demons of drugs and alcohol later in her life. She’s wonderful—and has to be, for the movie to be a success. The script by Anthony McCarten has some of the beats and pleasures of his Bohemian Rhapsody, and though she won’t match Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury at the Oscars, Ackie is clearly a talent on the rise. 

Superb in a supporting role is an almost unrecognizable Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis: he truly sinks into the part of Whitney Houston’s mentor and hit maker. Lemmons helms a capable cast, all of whom are up for their roles, particularly Clarke Peters as Whitney’s problematic dad and Nafessa Williams as Houston’s lesbian best friend and personal manager, Robyn Crawford. 

If there’s a drawback to the film, it’s that this is an officially sanctioned production, in which the Houston family and Clive Davis had complete approval. Did Houston have a same-sex relationship with Crawford? How abusive was the marriage between Whitney Houston and the totally inappropriate Bobby Brown? The film can’t dispense with the tragic third act of Whitney’s life, but it avoids showing how bad it likely got from time to time. 

Still,  it’s not a bad thing to play up the good times in the singer’s life. Made with commitment and musical savvy, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a likeable film—and, yes, one that people can enjoy during the holiday season.