Women Talking: Read Sarah Polley’s script for the remake of A Broken World.

Editor’s note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the screenplays of films that will appear in this year’s film awards race.

Should we stay or should we go? The women of an isolated faith community ask themselves this question in the award-winning drama women talkWritten and directed by Sarah Polley.

Based on Miriam Toews’ 2018 bestseller of the same name, the film from MGM’s Orion Pictures, Plan B Entertainment and Hear/Say itself is inspired by real-life events in Bolivia’s Manitoba colony. Set in 2010, it follows women from a similar group struggling to reconcile their reality with their beliefs. The circumstances that drive them apart are repeated incidents of sexual violence inflicted on them by their male colleagues, forcing them to consider leaving the only world they have ever known.

Contrary to what one would expect given the horrors at the heart of the story, reading Toews’ book for the first time left the filmmaker with a “dizzyingly hopeful” feeling. of strength, trauma, healing, guilt, community and self-determination.”

Polley adds that when she first started thinking about her adaptation, she imagined it was “in the realm of a fable.” Polley explains, “I wanted to feel in each image the endless potential and possibilities inherent in a conversation about how to rebuild a broken world.”

The origin of the story is discussed in more detail in this MGM featurette:

With Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand, women talk had its world premiere at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival and was released in select theaters by United Artists Releasing on December 23 before hitting theaters on January 20. Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and McDormand produced the film, with Brad Pitt, Lyn Lucibello Brancatella and Emily Jade Foley serving as executive producers.

So far this awards season women talk as recognized with nominations from the Critics’ Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, Gotham Awards and Golden Globes.

Click below to read Polley’s script.