Can ‘Women Talking’ hold on to win Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay?

It’s been a challenging few weeks for “Women Talking,” Sarah Polley‘s critically acclaimed drama about the women of a Mennonite community reckoning with the sexual abuse they’ve suffered at the hands of their male neighbors. The film has had an uphill climb this awards season. But one category where its Oscar hopes seem brightest is Best Adapted Screenplay. Can it hold on for a win in that race regardless of how it fares elsewhere?

“Women Talking” performed well at the Critics Choice Awards, where it was nominated six times including Best Picture and Best Director and ultimately won for its screenplay. But elsewhere the film has underperformed: just two nominations at the Golden Globes (Best Screenplay and Best Score), just one SAG Award nomination (for its ensemble cast), and no nominations at all at the BAFTAs.

Nevertheless, the dialogue-driven film has remained out front in our Oscar odds for Best Adapted Screenplay, which are based on the combined predictions of thousands of Gold Derby users. As of this writing 13 of the Expert journalists we’ve surveyed from major media outlets are predicting “Women Talking” to win, compared to just three apiece betting on “Glass Onion” and “The Whale” and two who say “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

That might in part be a function of how the categories lined up. Most of the top contenders for Best Picture have original scripts (“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans,” “Elvis,” and “TAR”), while other adapted Best Picture contenders like “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Avatar: The Way of Water” are action films with less emphasis on scripting.

That said, adapted films “Glass Onion” and “The Whale” were nominated for Best Picture by the Producers Guild, while “All Quiet” swept the BAFTAs with 14 nominations, so we know those films have strong support from industry groups. Could one of them sneak past “Women Talking” in the home stretch?

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