Call Jane: Film Review
The Call Jane team could never have known just how timely their movie would be when they made it but since the shock overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, it has become even more powerful and relevant.
The film is set in Chicago in the late ’60s and follows conservative, Christian housewife Joy (Elizabeth Banks) as she discovers that her pregnancy is a risk to her health. However, the hospital refuses to sign off on a termination so she takes matters into her own hands and discovers the Jane Collective, an underground organisation of women who help others get an abortion. The group truly existed between 1969 and 1973.
This film serves as a warning of the lengths women will go to when you take their right to choose away. It would have delivered an important pro-choice message regardless, but it packs more of a punch given the recent Supreme Court ruling. There’s always this conversation about abortion if it’s a result of incest or rape or if the baby or mother is unwell but there are a multitude of reasons why pregnancies are unwanted. This film illustrates that very well and also addresses the racial and socioeconomic inequality with access to abortions in America.
I loved watching this people-pleasing housewife become independent and discover her voice. After she receives a service from the Janes, she becomes increasingly involved in the organisation in secret. However, it comes to dominate her time and takes her away from her husband William (Chris Messina) and daughter Charlotte (Grace Edwards). She has to balance her jobs as a wife and a mother with her sense of duty towards the Janes.
I love the choices Banks makes with her career and how she goes from light comedies to serious films with a strong message (and directs too). She plays Joy very sincerely and I liked watching the character find her purpose and sense of agency. Sigourney Weaver is excellent as Virginia, the head of the organisation, and I was intrigued by Cory Michael Smith‘s Dean, the only male within the Jane Collective. Wunmi Mosaku and Kate Mara have small supporting parts but aren’t in it anywhere near enough.
The film is definitely preaching to the choir with me and I really appreciate that it exists. I don’t think many pro-lifers will even give it a try but I would love it if they did and could understand a different point of view. This film may be based in the ’60s but it doesn’t take much imagination to picture a group like the Janes existing now – or in the near future – for exactly the same reason.
This is an important, poignant movie and I hope as many people see it as possible.
In cinemas from Friday 4th November