Hartford Courant (Sunday)

Get talking about filmmaking career of Oscar winner Polley

- By Katie Walsh

Sarah Polley’s Oscarwinni­ng film “Women Talking” recently arrived on DVD and Blu-ray, weeks after its debut on Amazon Prime Video, iTunes and other videoon-demand platforms.

The film was nominated for best picture at the recent Academy Awards, and Polley took home the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

“Women Talking” is Polley’s fourth feature film, and she adapted the screenplay from the 2018 book by Miriam Toews, a novel described as a “reaction through fiction.” It’s based on events that took place from 2005 to 2009 in the Manitoba Colony, a Mennonite community in Bolivia. Women and girls were waking up to injuries from sexual assault with no memory of their attacks, and it was discovered that men from the colony were drugging and raping them at night.

In “Women Talking,” Toews, and then Polley, imagine a conversati­on between a group of the women from the colony who have to decide whether to do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. It unfolds over the course of about a day, when the attackers have been taken to jail by local authoritie­s and the women debate their beliefs, experience­s and fears.

It’s a testament to Polley’s fantastic writing and direction as well as the caliber of the actors — including Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley — that this film about a group of people talking in a barn is as riveting as it is, and it is tremendous­ly gripping.

Polley, who has been working as an actor since childhood, has mostly devoted her career to writing and directing since

her directoria­l debut, “Away From Her,” in 2006.

This sensitive drama about an older couple navigating their relationsh­ip after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis is a startlingl­y assured and nuanced debut feature. Starring Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent and Olympia Dukakis, it announced Polley’s talent as a director right away. Stream it on Tubi, Kanopy or Mubi, or rent it elsewhere.

Polley followed that up in 2011 by swinging back to the early stages of marriage with the tender domestic drama “Take This Waltz.” The film stars Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman and Luke Kirby as a quartet of young adults navigating their relationsh­ips with their spouses and others. Stream it on HBO Max, Kanopy, Tubi or Hulu, or rent it elsewhere.

Polley pivoted to nonfiction in 2012 with the creative cinematic memoir “Stories We Tell,” recounting the story of her mother and using her family as the unreliable narrators of this story. Remarkably daring and bold, this documentar­y will make you look at nonfiction filmmaking and memoir in a whole new light. Stream it on Roku,

Kanopy and Amazon Freevee, or rent it elsewhere.

But before she was an Oscar-winning filmmaker, Polley was one of the coolest actors of ’90s indie cinema, starring in Atom Egoyan’s 1997 film “The Sweet Hereafter” (stream it on Criterion Channel and Amazon Freevee), and opposite Katie Holmes and Timothy Olyphant in Doug Liman’s edgy Christmas Eve romp “Go” (rent it on all platforms). She’s also one of the most iconic zom-com queens in Zack Snyder’s excellent, bloody, ironic “Dawn of the Dead” remake from 2004 (rent it on all digital platforms).

Polley also had a successful career as a child actor in Canada, starring in the TV series “Ramona” and “Road to Avonlea.”

She also co-starred in Terry Gilliam’s fantastica­l “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” though her experience­s on the set were deeply traumatic, as recounted in her 2022 memoir “Run Towards the Danger.” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” is available to rent on all platforms, though be sure to read her book or essay in the Guardian about her experience­s on that set in conjunctio­n with your viewing.

 ?? LIONSGATE FILMS ?? Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent star in 2006’s “Away From Her,” the directoria­l debut of Sarah Polley.
LIONSGATE FILMS Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent star in 2006’s “Away From Her,” the directoria­l debut of Sarah Polley.

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