An anthology of seven films directed by seven different female talents, with an all star cast including Cara Delevigne, Jennifer Hudson and Eva Longoria, Tell it Like a Woman explores both true and fictional stories of unsung female heroes.
★★★✰✰
It’s always exciting to see a film or artwork centred around female experience that does not revolve around a romantic narrative. In many respects, this film is successful. In under two hours it explores addiction, homelessness, mental illness, violence against women, grief and motherhood. Through the stories it tells displays of resilience, recovery, empowerment, coalition and responsibility. However, it’s a lot to jam into an hour and forty minutes and would be better placed as a series than a film. It is enjoyable and often moving, but by trying to fit such a vast range of women’s stories into a single film some of the sections aren’t given the attention they deserve. In some ways, it reflects our society—the women at its centre are not given enough time and space.
Among the stories told are that of charity worker Dr. Susan Partovi and her work with Project Roomkey in Los Angeles, which turned hotels into homeless shelters during the coronavirus pandemic. In ‘Sharing a Ride’, starring Jaqueline Fernandez and directed by Leena Yadav, an Indian plastic surgeon coming to terms with her sexuality; in ‘Unspoken’ (starring Margerita Buy, directed by Maria Sole), a veterinary doctor stays at work late and helps a woman being abused by her husband. The film closes with an animation, ‘Aria’ (written and directed by Lucia Bulgheroni and Silvia Carrobio), which explores notions of escaping gendered expectations and finding freedom.
‘A Week in my Life’ was by far the most successful chapter due to its simplicity, with strong acting, cinematography and direction and an authenticity that some of the other stories lacked. The story follows the struggles of a single mother balancing work with raising her two young children, using a crisp aesthetic that draws the viewer into the mother’s life. It sets itself in the contemporary era with ease—the daughter tells her mum off for having ‘too much screen time’, and wins a robotic hoover for her—but doesn’t try too hard to be of-the-moment.
The film shows the impossibility of fitting in work and raising children all at once. The protagonist does an excellent job; working at a cafe, hoovering, taking the children to their activities, and cooking meals every day, but we see how overwhelmed she is. For her, it seems, motherhood is stressful and unrewarding. There is a poignant moment of relief at the end of the film when a mysterious package arrives, the contents of which makes the stress of the week worth it. The story depicts the small moments of joy which, amongst the stress and hard work, make motherhood such a beautiful experience. It fits the narrative into its short runtime well, portraying the hardships and rewards of motherhood with empathy. This chapter gives real insight into a mother’s life, something which is rarely executed so successfully.
There are structural similarities to John Carney’s Modern Love and Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, in the sense that while they share a common subject of womanhood, each story is entirely self-contained. While the storylines are engaging and moving as a whole, and the acting is mostly good, the quality of each story’s direction and execution were of such different standards that it stopped the collective project from having unity. Many of the stories don’t reach their potential in the small segment of time allocated to them, which echoes the problem women face of being squashed and prevented from fulfilling their full potential.
‘Percy and Kim’, in particular, felt rushed and underdeveloped. Based on the true story of Kim Carter, starring Jennifer Hudson and directed by Taraji P. Henson, the segment describes a traumatic story of sexual abuse which feels far too explicitly portrayed. It was a high impact way to start the film, but the subject could have been handled with far more subtlety and sensitivity. The voiceover describing trauma, mental illness and addiction felt cheesy and a little unconvincing, perhaps because the audience is not given enough time to really engage with the narrative.
As is the nature of anthology films, the overall story felt disjointed. To do justice to the stories of these women, it would have been more appropriate to produce it as a series. The collective project lacks flow, with wildly different standards of story, cinematography and direction in each chapter and some stories being based on truth while others are pure fiction. Certain stories stood out as standalone pieces, while others felt more like filler. Sadly, all that is unique and refreshing about the film is the fact that it focuses on women without including a romantic narrative.
The Verdict
This film is a start in celebrating everyday female heroes, and the stories were thought provoking, but the execution does not do justice to the wonderful acts of the women portrayed. We still need a series all about women.
Words by Alice Dawson
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