‘Women Talking’ looks at religious group debating faith, forgiveness following sexual abuse

LOS ANGELES — The new movie “Women Talking” is inspired by true events about incidents that happened at an isolated religious community. The film deals with faith, forgiveness, reckoning and rage.

The film tells the story of women at a breaking point over the sexual abuse and violence being committed repeatedly to women and girls who all live in a remote religious community.

Claire Foy is among the ensemble cast.

“This is based on, they were a Bolivian Mennonite community where these rapes occurred. And actually, that was in 2010,” said Foy. “So it’s based on fact, you know, the inspiration for the novel and then the film is based on fact. So it’s interesting that people think it’s a period film. It’s not.”

The women in the story must decide if they’re going to do nothing, stay and fight or just leave it all behind.

“These women have a huge responsibility to discuss the direction of their entire community,” said Foy. “And they have to have the hard conversations that a lot of the times in life we don’t want to have. We don’t want to hear that we should maybe have compassion for the other side or we don’t want to hear that we’re all complicit in what’s happening. And these women are able to hold all these things and have those conversations in a really open and robust way.”

“Women Talking” is in theatres Dec. 23.