Director Sarah Polley gets Women Talking

Michael Gibson/Orion Rooney Mara, Judith Ivey, Claire Foy, and director Sarah Polley on the set of 'Women Talking'

Sarah Polley wanted Women Talking to feel like a fable. The stunning drama centers on an isolated group of Mennonite women who learn that they have been repeatedly drugged and sexually assaulted by men in their own community. They gather secretly in a hayloft to decide, as a collective, whether to leave the only home they know — or stay and fight back.

Polley adapted the film from Miriam Toews' 2018 novel, which was based on a true story in Bolivia. The writer-director tells EW her goal was to craft a film that felt both hyper-specific in its setting and universal in its themes, interrogating ideas about womanhood, power, and hope.

"There's something heightened about the premise," Polley, 43, explains. "I wanted that to be really clear. We're asking you to go into a world where you can ask these enormous questions."

The Canadian Polley built her career as an actress and child star, appearing in projects like Go and The Sweet Hereafter before pivoting to directing. In Women Talking, she lets her actors shine, lingering on her cast — which includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Jessie Buckley — as they share long, fraught conversations about their hopes for the future.

"It was basically like doing a play over and over again," Polley says. "A big part of the casting process was figuring out the right chemistry, in terms of the personalities we brought into that hayloft."

The film's egalitarian spirit extended to its production, with Polley encouraging her cast and crew to share suggestions on set. "We were asking people to be very vulnerable and open and generous with their experiences," she says. "I think you can't have that happen in an environment where people feel like they're not safe and taken care of."

Women Talking arrives in theaters Dec. 2.

Make sure to also check out EW's Holiday Movie Preview cover story on Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Related content:

• Women Talking review: A religious commune reckons with rape and retribution

• Claire Foy and Paul Bettany talk 'messy, complicated' roles on A Very British Scandal

• Jessie Buckley on her singular, brilliant turn in I'm Thinking of Ending Things