Call Jane

Joy (Elizabeth Banks), a housewife in 1960s America, is looking forward to having her second child. But her happy bubble bursts when she gets the news that the pregnancy is seriously endangering her own life. Denied a possibly life-saving abortion by the (all male) panel at her local hospital, she turns to 'The Janes' a secret (real-life) group of women led by the charismatic Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) who risk everything to let women like Joy make their own choice… Given the US Supreme Court’s recent overturning of the landmark ‘Roe vs. Wade’ decision that gave women the right to an abortion, director Phyllis Nagy’s drama is an urgent and timely call to arms. ‘Its refined, sensitive, humanized historicism, with clear arc and stakes, [shows] a stylized window into a different time… “Call Jane” particularly shines in [its] depiction of the abortion procedure itself—the camera hovers over the metal instruments… and each woman’s face in anxious repose. The measured observance and repetition of these scenes manages to capture both the clinical precision of a medical procedure and a deeply personal, often frightening experience unique to each woman. That in itself is a feat.’— Adrian Horton, The Guardian