Call Jane Review: Banks Is Great In Timely, But Anticlimactic Drama [Sundance]
In a time when abortion rights are still being fought for, Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane seems incredibly timely. Co-written by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, and based loosely around the Jane Collective, a network of women who helped others get safe abortions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Call Jane’s heart is in the right place, even as it makes some rather underwhelming narrative choices. Elevated by a strong performance from Elizabeth Banks, Nagy’s film is surprisingly mellow and anticlimactic despite the strength of its subject matter.
Set in 1968, Joy (Banks) is a happy housewife who is expecting her second child with husband Will (Chris Messina). However, after a few dizzy spells and a collapse reveal she has a condition that could kill her if she doesn’t terminate the pregnancy, Joy petitions the hospital to allow her to get an abortion. The counsel — all of them men who ignore Joy’s very existence — decides against it despite Joy wondering aloud about the importance of a mother’s life. A few turns leads her to “Call Jane” and it isn’t long before Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku) picks her up, blindfolds her, and takes her to a location where she’s able to get a safe abortion. Thereafter she meets Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) and realizes there is no Jane, just a collective of women who are putting their lives on the line in a bid to help others who, for various reasons, no longer want to be pregnant. Joy is recruited to join the cause and comes to learn a thing or two about the procedure itself from Dean (Cory Michael Smith), the doctor who overcharges women seeking help.
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Call Jane is indeed about an important subject, now more
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