Wishes aren’t decisions, decisions aren’t actions, and actions aren’t a given, especially where rights are concerned. Women intrinsically know this struggle — not just for choice itself, but for what choosing entails — and Oscar-nominated “Carol”In her riveting, personal drama, screenwriter Phyllis Nagy explores these issues incisively and humanely “Call Jane,”The story of Elizabeth Banks, a suburban Chicago woman who met a network of women that allowed safe abortions to take place in years prior to Roe v. Wade.
Janes were real. They were an activist group that worked illegally, but tirelessly, to help pregnant women from all walks through particular hardships. Their incredible story is the subject a documentary.“The Janes”) that’s also premiering at this year’s Sundance. But what makes Nagy’s dramatization the perfect complement to testimony-driven non-fiction told from the inside is that it’s artfully crafted from Hayley Schore’s and Roshan Sethi’s screenplay to be a journey from the outside in, showing how reality can necessitate a personal and political awakening.
Nagy’s elegantly metaphorical opening shot tips this beautifully, starting with an arrowed “Ladies” restroom sign and following elegantly attired Joy (Banks) as she glides past the ballroom, where her lawyer husband Will (Chris Messina) is in the thick of a partners’ dinner, and toward the curious noise of protesters outside the police-protected entrance. The chacha-cha music stops and we can hear the famous 1968 antiwar chant. “The whole world is watching!”
Joy senses, and respects, the change in the air, but doesn’t see her own comfortable domestic life with her husband, teenage daughter Charlotte (Grace Edwards), and friendly widowed neighbor (Kate Mara), in those terms. When her pregnancy turns life-threatening, however, and the hospital’s all-male gatekeepers disallow termination, her desperation leads her to a posted number on a flyer and a friendly female voice.
Joy is soon joined by Gwen (a rock solid Wunmi Mosaku), for a ride in blindfolded. “Loki”), who collects $600 from her; an all-business procedure in a nondescript office from a brusque, white-coated young man (Cory Michael Smith, “Gotham”) who asks if she’s a cop; and afterward, in someone’s house, homemade spaghetti and recovery advice from the no-nonsense Virginia (Sigourney Weaver), who seems to be in charge.
When Joy learns about how the Janes operate, she’s drawn to assisting them secretly, which turns into helping them realize they can be stronger, more caring, and less cash-dependent so that poorer candidates don’t have to pay. These scenes, which are based on the actual Janes’ trajectory, but are largely fictionalized, make for a thrilling, inspiring, and sometimes even funny scene of problem-solving.
Banks, magnetic for her ability to communicate the percolating smarts of hidden strength under a composed facade, is the perfect avatar for this evolution. Weaver, on the other hand, is an excellent role as the sharp-tongued mother radical, who has been reenergized by the forward thinking “Jackie O,”As she teases Joy, she is supporting their mission. Elsewhere, Messina proves once more why he’s so good at well-intentioned men with blind spots, and in roles deceptively small but finely nuanced as they relate to the ripples in Joy’s world, Mara and Edwards shine.
Though the movie always makes clear how serious, necessary, and fraught the Janes’ work is, Nagy — returning to the directing chair for the first time since her 2005 HBO film “Mrs. Harris” — avoids the trap of issue-film sensationalism, focusing on the spark and spirit of communal endeavor even as it addresses pitfalls of race and privilege in the Janes’ efforts, and effectively conveys (again, with sometimes surprisingly well-handled levity) what makes for a safe abortion.
It’s no small feat to hew to the same no-judgments ethos the Janes held about their desperate candidates, so it’s a welcome turn in the second half when, as Joy’s double life risks exposure, a premium is put on how believably complicated, and worthy of understanding, everyone’s reactions are. With Greta Zozula’s intimately textured 16mm cinematography masterfully evoking a world of care and carefulness made lived-in by the wonderful cast, the film is practically a handbook in compassion as the key to bridging divides, while simultaneously never losing any of its storytelling flair or baked-in righteousness. It’s an asset also evident in Nagy’s keen deployment of period music (both diegetic and non-diegetic) as culturally organic commentary, not merely thematic or period-shading crutches.
In an unjust world the Janes did everything they could to provide comfort, hope, and aid to women who had nowhere else to turn. At its richest and most riveting, when it’s seizing your breath or making you laugh or opening your eyes, “Call Jane”This book is about how to realize true freedom and what it takes to get there. Though its dark setting brims with the light of the remarkable work of these inspiring agents of agency, one can only hope that, considering grim turns of late in the fight for women’s access to health care, “Call Jane” isn’t also, ironically, showing us what lies ahead.
“Call Jane”The 2022 Sundance Film Festival will host its world premiere.