movie review for call jane

‘Call Jane’ Review: An Inspiring if Simplified History of Chicago’s Underground Abortion Network

'Carol' screenwriter Phyllis Nagy spotlights a group of women who fought to provide safe abortions, while trying to leave off-screen much of the surrounding controversy.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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There are a whole lot of cigarettes in “ Call Jane ,” a detail — along with flip bob hairstyles and polyester pantsuits — that demonstrates director Phyllis Nagy ’s commitment to the late-’60s period, even as it shows that the movie isn’t trying to tell women what to do with their bodies. Inspired by true events, this Sundance-blessed abortion drama takes place more than 50 years ago, but it could hardly be more timely today, as the Supreme Court considers several cases with the potential to roll back the freedoms granted by Roe v. Wade. Set in 1968, half a decade before that decision, the movie tells the story of the Chicago-based network of activists who called themselves the Jane Collective — a clandestine group of women committed to helping other women find a safe way to get illegal abortions. As the tagline goes, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

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Who were the Janes? Well, there’s Virginia (Sigourney Weaver), a front-line feminist who’s stopped marching in order to make a real difference. Her character is loosely based on Jane founder Heather Booth, reimagined by co-writers Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi. And there’s Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku), a Black Power advocate who argues their doctor is charging too much for lower-income women to afford the procedure (it costs a then-prohibitive $600). There’s even a nun named Sister Mike (Aida Turturro), who answers the phones and serves spaghetti to recovering patients.

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Considering that none of its members is actually named Jane, the group seems uniquely suited to a rousing finale — you know, the “I am Spartacus” sort, where everyone stands in solidarity when one of their ranks is threatened. Nagy, who wrote the buttoned-up lesbian drama “Carol” for director Todd Haynes, doesn’t try for anything so manipulative as that. But she’s not being entirely true to the underlying situation either, stripping “Call Jane” of much of the conflict that would have made it dramatically interesting: the cops, doctors, husbands and other bad guys who might have broken up the organization are either absent or one-dimensional. (The problem at the time was that men were the ones deciding women’s health issues, including Roe v. Wade.)

The movie centers primarily on Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ), a model housewife in the “Bewitched” mold whose defense-attorney husband, Will (Chris Messina), has just been made partner. The couple have a teenage daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards), and another child on the way. And then comes the news that Joy has a heart condition that puts her at a 50/50 chance of dying during childbirth. The doctor is clear: she “cannot be pregnant.” Joy considers throwing herself down the stairs. She visits an illicit abortion clinic but chickens out. And then she sees the flyer: Call Jane. So she does.

Early in the film, Joy sees yippies protesting the establishment outside a downtown hotel and tells her husband, “You can feel a shifting current.” It’s safe to say, she’s about to get a little carried away. Over the course of the next two hours — in what might have made for a stronger miniseries — Joy undergoes a lifesaving abortion and winds up not just joining the Jane Collective but learning how to do the procedure so the women don’t have to keep relying on their under-qualified male doctor (Cory Michael Smith, who looks like “Risky Business”-era Tom Cruise in a lab coat).

That transformation — from docile conservative to active crusader for women’s reproductive rights — marks one hell of a character arc. It was smart of the filmmakers to start with an apolitical outsider and follow her through an overdue feminist awakening, rather than preaching to the most liberal members of the audience. Produced by Robbie Brenner (“Dallas Buyers Club”) and more than two dozen others, “Call Jane” shares that movie’s at-times astonishing true-story foundations, once again detailing the roundabout methods Americans must use to get the health care they need. But it lacks the same free-wheeling thrill.

After Joy’s procedure, Virginia calls to see how she’s recovering, then asks her a favor: They need someone to pick up a young woman in Joy’s neighborhood. Virginia’s the kind of person who won’t take no for an answer, and Weaver sells her concern and charisma 100%. Virginia may have started Jane with certain ideals, but she’s not immune to change, listening to the suggestions of others. Meanwhile, chaperoning an unmarried girl (who will later be a repeat customer), Joy sets aside her judgment and starts to acknowledge the infinite reasons someone might seek an abortion.

In the time it was active, the organization (further explored in the upcoming HBO documentary “The Janes,” also debuting at Sundance) facilitated an estimated 12,000 abortions. To some, that number might sound like genocide; to others, an underground revolution. “Call Jane” is not much concerned with the usual debates about unborn babies, focusing instead on a kind of sisterhood that brought together women of wide-ranging backgrounds. Even the widow next door, Lana (Kate Mara) — a Nixon-voting Republican who’s always got her nose in her neighbor’s business — surprises when the time comes. If Americans are ever going to change their minds about abortion, they need to start by being honest about just how many people are having them.

The female empowerment message comes through loud and clear in “Call Jane,” especially in Banks’ performance. What’s missing from the picture is the threat of discovery, the dangling sword of Damocles that might chasten anyone taking so much responsibility on themselves. Joy appears to have married the most oblivious man on the planet, pretending to go to art classes without ever producing so much as a single painting. The film shows the women using blindfolds and secret knocks to protect their locations, and the script repeatedly references how they enlist the mob for protection. But there’s hardly any sense that they could get caught — or worse, that complications from just one operation could mean complications for the whole operation. What these women accomplished in the years before the (all-male) Supreme Court’s 1973 decision was remarkable. But it couldn’t possibly have been this simple.

Reviewed at Rodeo Screening Room, Los Angeles, Jan. 20, 2022. In Sundance Film Festival (Premieres). Running time: 121 MIN.

• Production: An Ingenious Media presentation of an RB Entertainment, Redline Entertainment production, in association with Our Turn Prods., FirstGen Content, LB Entertainment. (World sales: UTA, Los Angeles.) Producers: Robbie Brenner, David Wulf, Kevin McKeon, Lee Broda, Claude Amadeo, Michael D'Alto. Executive producers: Christelle Conan, Peter Touche, Erica Kahn, Judy Bart, Chris Triana, Randal B. Sandler, Iris Smith, Tai Lopez, Lisa D'Ambrosio, Gretchen Sisson, Patricia Lawley, Amanda Kiely, Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi, Joe Simpson, Leal Naim, Thomas Burke, Jeff Rice, Joseph Lanius, Jeffrey Hecktman, Michelle Campbell Mason, Colby Cote, Julien Lemaitre. 
• Crew: Director: Phyllis Nagy. Screenplay: Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi. Camera: Greta Zozula. Editor: Peter McNulty. Music: Isabella Summers.
• With: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro.

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Elizabeth banks in phyllis nagy’s ‘call jane’: film review | sundance 2022.

‘Carol’ screenwriter Nagy directs the story of a suburban woman’s involvement in the Jane Collective, an underground service that provided safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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A bracing and intimate view of a historical moment that’s less distant than we might think, Call Jane opens with a brilliant sequence that begins in a posh Chicago hotel, where an elegantly dressed woman drifts away from her husband’s business shindig. As the camera follows her through the lobby, her blond updo calls to mind another movie character, Kim Novak’s in Vertigo — a woman under the thumb of men if ever there was one. By contrast, Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ) is a sturdy, cheerful suburbanite who keeps a household humming and helps her husband with his legal briefs, and she would never describe herself as being under the thumb of anybody. Then a medical emergency makes it brutally clear that, according to the laws of the United States, her life is not entirely her own.

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Call Jane is the story of a fictional character’s life-changing involvement in the Jane Collective, an underground service that provided safe abortions for women when they were still illegal. It takes its title from the message printed on flyers posted in Chicago in the late ’60s and early ’70s, sheets of paper that announced an open secret and offered salvation to women with no other options. The group’s courage and compassion are explored in another Sundance selection, the documentary The Janes . (One of the figures profiled in the doc, Judith Arcana , is credited here as a research consultant.) The two films would make an inspiring double feature — and, should the Supreme Court overturn the 1973 ruling that rendered the Janes unnecessary, they could also serve as primers in reproductive justice.

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres)

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro

Director:  Phyllis Nagy

Screenwriters: Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi

The Janes tells a communal story, and certainly the power of collaboration and a shared sense of urgency drive Call Jane . But drama usually requires a protagonist, and the screenplay by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi gives us a compelling one in Joy, with Banks delivering her most complex and stirring feature-film performance in years.

Though the screenplay might hit a point or two rather neatly on the head, Carol screenwriter Nagy, at the helm of her first theatrical film (she directed a starry cast in the 2005 true-crime TV movie Mrs. Harris ), builds a subtle and affecting sense of time and place, with nods to ’70s indie filmmaking. The character-driven design contributions from Jona Tochet and Julie Weiss are steeped in a lived-in period palette, pops of vibrancy included. A soundtrack of refreshingly unobvious ’60s rock and funk weds well to the action, and Isabella Summers’ eloquent score offers keens of alarm and suspenseful percussive riffs, emphasizing the sense of upheaval, life-or-death danger and galvanic optimism that we experience through Joy’s eyes.

Banks, who memorably played Laura Bush in W. , has a knack for getting beneath the carefully coiffed surface of characters that some people would write off based on their politics or appearance. She embodies the restless intelligence and the paradox of Joy, who becomes a key member of a revolutionary enterprise while keeping up appearances in well-heeled Republican suburbia.

In the scenes that open the movie, Joy’s husband, Will (Chris Messina), is celebrating having been made a partner at his law firm. Elsewhere in the city the Democratic National Convention is underway, unmentioned but signaled by the “August 1968” title that appears onscreen, and by the Yippie demonstration outside the hotel. We hear the protesters but don’t see them; it’s Joy’s reaction that Nagy cares about. She’s shaken by the commotion, but also drawn to the energy and passion of it, to the idea of a world in flux. On the ride home, the words “shifting” and “current” flicker through her comments to Will.

When he pulls their sedan into the driveway at the end of their night out, Joy waits for him to open her car door; for a woman of her generation and upbringing, that’s how things are done. And yet something is pulling at the edges of this conformity. Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique hit the cultural conversation a few years before this story begins, and a couple of years later a women’s collective in Boston will publish Our Bodies, Ourselves . Joy’s widowed neighbor, Lana ( Kate Mara , superb), is reading Diary of a Mad Housewife , albeit through a veil of doctor-prescribed pills and afternoon cocktails. (In another echo of Vertigo , Lana’s daughter asks Joy if she “went blond” for her husband.)

Perhaps Joy is thinking about shifting currents because she’s pregnant with her second child. The way she grooves to a Velvet Underground album from the collection of her 15-year-old daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards), signals that she’s poised for an awakening. It arrives with a devastating blow: Medical complications put her life at risk if she proceeds with the pregnancy, but the law forbids her to terminate it. She’s required to seek the hospital board’s permission for a therapeutic abortion. Unsurprising fact number one: The board members are all men. Number two: They say no.

Will is the kind of straight-arrow guy who doesn’t want to pull strings with the medical establishment, afraid that this would compromise his credibility and his career. After trying a few unsatisfactory options that lead her to an abortionist’s grungy apartment, which she flees, Joy happens upon a bus-stop flyer that beckons the pregnant and anxious to “call Jane.”

And yes, this is a story that focuses its outrage over social injustice through the lens of a privileged character and the “it can happen to anyone, even the white wife of an attorney” angle. But Nagy, Schore and Sethi acknowledge this, and the fact that the ban on abortion disproportionately affected women who are poor, Black or brown. Matters of race and class burst to the surface of the film in a brief but charged debate between Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku), the Janes’ sole Black member, and Virginia ( Sigourney Weaver ), the group’s imperious and passionately dedicated leader.

Virginia and Joy could go toe-to-toe in terms of competence and resolve. But the former, a dyed-in-the-wool grassroots activist, knows how to navigate life on the other side of the law, as outlined in an exposition drop that’s jarring amid the otherwise nuanced dialogue. The two women meet right after Joy’s abortion, in one of the collective’s apartments, where Joy is offered a blanket and a comforting bowl of spaghetti along with friendly, irreverent banter and her first taste of 1960s bohemia.

Played without an ounce of sentimentality by Weaver, Virginia has a way of getting what she wants, and once she’s assured that Joy has healed, she ropes her into helping another client. One such favor leads to another, and then to full-on commitment, with Joy’s increasingly frequent evening absences, attributed to “art class,” understandably raising the suspicions of Will, and of Charlotte especially. Played with a deadpan sensibility that’s reminiscent of Alia Shawkat, Charlotte doesn’t always track as a character, until you recognize that she’s a conflicted teenager who may have a defiant streak but is still largely sheltered from, and confused by, the turbulent times in which she’s coming of age.

Unlike many people in her circumstances, Joy is curious about the political mood rather than repelled by it. And she finds purpose with the Janes, eventually becoming de facto assistant to Dean (Cory Michael Smith), the man who performs abortions for the group’s clients. An unlikely combination of boyish bowl cut and outsize swagger, he’s an unsettling and fascinating character, committed more to the money he makes than he is to the women’s cause. Smith is one of three relatively unfamiliar actors in the cast, the others being Edwards and a terrific Mosaku, who make an impact in key supporting roles. The director steps away from Joy’s POV for a beautifully played scene between Smith and Weaver, their characters negotiating a business deal over vodka shots.

As for the abortions themselves, Nagy and cinematographer Greta Zozula focus on the women’s vulnerability, not to mention the metal instruments involved. There’s a breathtaking moment when Joy, mid-procedure, having finally found a safe solution to her life-threatening predicament, blurts out to Dean, “I’m scared!” Keeping the film grounded in character, Nagy eloquently reminds us at every turn that what has been labeled a crime is a medical procedure, and underscores how personal all this is for the women.

Along the way, and not without humor, Joy learns to discard her moralistic assumptions about the Janes’ clients. Virginia is her guide on that front, and like Virginia the film refrains from casting judgment. Dean, for all his flaws, is also a life-saver, and never dismissed as a villain. And Will is a good guy, however blinkered and old-school. “Did something happen today?” he asks a fired-up Joy over the dinner table. If he only knew. Messina taps into his character’s sensitivity as well as his cluelessness, and a couple of scenes between him and Mara’s sad-eyed Lana are heart-stopping portrayals of messy, fumbling decency and grace. Even an undercover detective (John Magaro) who confronts Joy toward the end of the film defies stereotype.

We know the achievements and victories of the era Nagy depicts, and yet, because she and her fine cast bring the story to such vivid, immediate life, the final moments of Call Jane are powerful with unanticipated joy. They sting too, because we know where we are now, and the trajectory of the intervening years.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Production companies: Ingenious Media, RB Entertainment, Redline Entertainment, Our Turn Productions, FirstGen Content, LB Entertainment Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro Director: Phyllis Nagy Screenwriters: Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi Producers: Robbie Brenner, David Wulf, Kevin McKeon, Lee Broda, Claude Amadeo, Michael D'Alto Executive producers: Christelle Conan, Peter Touche, Erica Kahn, Judy Bart, Chris Triana, Randal B. Sadler, Iris Smith, Tai Lopez, Lisa D'Ambrosio, Gretchen Sisson, Patricia Lawley, Amanda Kiely, Hayley Schore, Roshan Sethi, Joe Simpson, Leal Naim, Thomas Burke, Jeff Rice, Joseph Lanius, Jeffrey Hecktman, Michelle Campbell Mason, Colby Cote, Jeff Kwatinetz Director of photography: Greta Zozula Production designer: Jona Tochet Costume designer: Julie Weiss Editor: Peter McNulty Music: Isabella Summers Casting: Sheila Jaffe, Bryan Riley

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Call Jane Reviews

Nagy’s Call Jane had the potential to dive into the topic of women’s reproductive rights, but it doesn’t lean towards being revolutionary.

Full Review | Sep 8, 2023

Call Jane is a story about abortion, but more than that, it’s a story about community and connection — and what we can achieve when we don’t act alone.

Full Review | Aug 10, 2023

Based on real events, the movie goes from the particular to the collective, from the kitchens to the streets, with steadiness and conviction, delicately and sensitively. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 9, 2023

... Although it recreates a very complex and terrible episode in a somewhat idealized and simplistic way, Call Jane conveys an exciting sorority in which women of all stripes, including a nun, risked their lives to help others. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 4, 2023

Effective, solid look at a retrograde past that is a throwback in the present. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 31, 2023

Call Jane is a good looking and superbly acted movie that whilst occasionally feeling a little passive, does it's best to provide intriguing and empowering discourse about the lack of abortion health care in 1960's America.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 24, 2023

It’s funnier and lighter on its feet than you might expect, the script isn’t lacking wit, and it’s well-cast, with Banks turning in a delicate, fine-tuned comedio-dramatic performance...

Full Review | Mar 27, 2023

Call Jane is an upbeat crowd-pleaser that handles the fraught issue of abortion with a light touch without ever making light of it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 23, 2023

As an accessible film with a solid lead performance, Call Jane is an important addition to the Janes’ story.

Full Review | Jan 19, 2023

Some of the comedic moments in Call Jane are awkwardly placed, and a few of the characters become dangerously close to being parodies. However, the movie is intriguing overall in portraying a pre-Roe v. Wade female perspective of abortion in the U.S.

Full Review | Jan 5, 2023

If Call Jane’s narrative is largely paint-by-numbers, its closing scene eschews narrative conventions. We are left with names, circumstances, the then-as-now cries for help, and the knowledge that there is so much more still to burn.

Full Review | Dec 17, 2022

El enfoque de la película se siente lavado. Se basa en una visión romántica del empoderamiento femenino mientras seguimos a una mujer blanca, de privilegio, que experimentó una instancia de opresión.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 15, 2022

While Call Jane is what I referred to earlier as an abortion drama, the abortions are one of the film’s least dramatic elements — which makes a fairly dramatic statement in itself. Of course, right now, any abortion drama feels appallingly timely

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Nov 28, 2022

Banks’ committed performance and the timely subject matter are what keep Nagy’s film truly afloat.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 19, 2022

Initially, the film’s heavy air of humor seems flippant, until you realize it’s an essential element in making such a controversial topic so imminently watchable.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Nov 15, 2022

This is a film that people need to see now. Its importance is growing by the day. Should serve as a rallying cry for women and people who support the idea of them having control over their own bodies.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 13, 2022

On its own, admittedly limited terms, “Call Jane” fills its goal of celebrating the work of a group of women committed to fighting for a right denied them in the sixties—and would undoubtedly feel they must now fight for again.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Nov 8, 2022

There are many pleasures to be had from the period look of the film which is enhanced by a neatly chosen soundtrack. It’s possible to watch Call Jane just for entertainment and not be too disturbed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 7, 2022

[An] entertaining, if not exactly heavyweight, movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 6, 2022

Well told and well acted, but go seen the documentary [The Janes].

Full Review | Nov 4, 2022

Call Jane: a powerful, timely pro-choice drama

Though conservative in its form and aesthetics, Phyllis Nagy’s impassioned film feels strangely radical at a time when the accessibility of free, safe and legal abortions has once again come up for debate.

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It’s 1968, and Joy (Elizabeth Banks) is a white housewife in the suburban sprawl of Chicago. On being denied an abortion that would prevent congenital heart failure, she contacts the Jane Collective, an organisation that sought in real life to provide terminations at a time when they were illegal across the entire US . She soon finds her life and politics changed in unanticipated ways.

From depicting spaghetti-cooking as an act of communal care to showing Jane members master the art of surgery, Call Jane takes us by the hand and leads us down the path of activism that Joy tentatively uncovers for herself. Given the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, ending Americans’ federal right to legal abortion services, it’s notable that the film presents women who are assured in their choices and who know what they need to live. Joy doesn’t agonise over the ‘right’ decision; the sole doubtful client is reluctant only because she fears the pain. Abortions are discussed and performed, bloodlessly, onscreen. It’s remarkable that Call Jane should feel radical in its commitment to the accessibility of free, safe and legal abortions in the year 2022.

In its form and aesthetics, the film is more conservative. The narrative unfolds as expected, with Joy’s husband Will (Chris Messina) and daughter Charlotte (Grace Edwards) becoming suspicious about Joy’s sudden interest in ‘art classes’. Visually, their austere home contrasts with the domestic bustle of the Jane Collective headquarters. And while the activist Jane women cook for and support one another, Joy’s widowed Republican neighbour, the predatory Lana, is waiting in the wings with a home-cooked casserole for Will. Moreover, inter-community conflicts about white privilege, which seem ripe for interrogation, are barely acknowledged in a script that could have done more to unravel tensions within the system that binds the women together. One of the many frustrating outcomes is that Wunmi Mosaku as Gwen, a key Jane activist, is underused throughout, as is Kate Mara as Lana.

If Call Jane’s narrative is largely paint-by-numbers, its closing scene eschews all the usual conventions of the fictionalised historical account. At a celebratory party to close down the Jane Collective after Roe v. Wade in 1973, members take turns to throw index cards on a fire as they read out the details of all the women they’ve helped. Director Phyllis Nagy judiciously refrains from inserting intertitles telling us what happened next. We are left with the names, the circumstances, the then-as-now cries for help, and the knowledge that there is so much more still to burn.

►  Call Jane  is part of the  D ebate strand at the  2022 London Film Festival ; it is  screening  on 14 and 16 October.

‘Call Jane’ Review: Elizabeth Banks-Starring Abortion Drama Turns Timely History into a WASPy Feel-Good Romp

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This review was originally published as part of our Sundance 2022 coverage .

Call Jane casually opens in a posh Chicago hotel as Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ) meanders through the lobby, past the live music of the dining room that intentionally clashes with the score. She emerges from the hotel, wide-eyed and naive as she steps into a police line that has formed to intimidate protesters across the street. It’s a strong opening from director Phyllis Nagy , but much like Joy’s aimless wandering in the hotel, Call Jane loses some of its momentum along the way.

Set in 1960s Chicago, in a time just before the landmark Roe v. Wade case, Call Jane is inspired by the true stories of the Jane Collective, an underground service that provided safe abortions for women. Ironically, or perhaps intentionally, Sundance is also premiering Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes ’ documentary The Janes this weekend. It makes sense, considering women’s reproductive rights are still a frequent point of contention in modern politics, which makes it all the more frustrating that Call Jane stops short of delivering a final reminder that the fight has not yet been won.

Joy is a picture-perfect housewife with a collection of beautiful dresses and a blonde bubble flip. She is a dedicated mother to her teenage daughter and a doting wife to her lawyer husband Will ( Chris Messina ). Her perfect little suburban life comes crashing down when she discovers that her second pregnancy might kill her. Together, Will and Joy petition the hospital to provide her with an abortion, but unsurprisingly the middle-aged men that sit around the boardroom only care about the unborn baby. They talk about her as if she isn’t in the room, briskly pointing out that, in theory, she could deliver a healthy baby, but she might die in the process. With that door closed, they attempt to find alternative solutions, but ultimately they’re stuck.

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Until Joy discovers a flier that reads “Call Jane.” Enter the Jane Collective, led by the strong-willed ball-buster Virginia ( Sigourney Weaver ), which helps women from every walk of life terminate their unwanted pregnancies. Despite her husband’s support, Joy opts to lie to him and claim that she had a miscarriage. This plot line works for the most part, but her continued deception and all that it leads to come across with shaky execution. Especially when Will’s later involvement is considered. Her relationships outside the collective are messy and ill-contrived; especially with her friend Lana ( Kate Mara ) whose only purpose in the narrative is to act as a sounding board for Joy to coyly admit to forgetting to vote and act as a source of temptation for Will, for no clear reason.

Call Jane shies away from some of the more poignant topics within the conversation about women’s reproductive rights. Much of the burden falls onto Gwen’s ( Wunmi Mosaku ) shoulders, who is the only Black woman in the film, and is only afforded one scene to call out the way the collective is only accessible to upper-middle-class white women. The script dances around the topic of racial inequity, favoring a very WASP-centric narrative. It’s almost as if Hayley Schore and Rohan Sethi ’s screenplay wanted to delve into that topic, but they ultimately decided their target audience wouldn’t find it palatable.

The first two acts of Call Jane are engaging and rather nerve-wracking as Joy takes things into her own hands, becoming more and more involved with the collective, but the final act falls apart. Despite the dire situation these women are in—both the women seeking abortions and those women providing them—everything feels very easily won. There is no real central conflict that isn’t easily brushed aside, which ultimately is counterintuitive to the message that the film could have delivered. It’s a tame and tepid approach to a timely topic.

With Phyllis Nagy at the helm, Call Jane had all the potential in the world to be something revolutionary, but it ultimately chose to take the path of least resistance. It leans into a very glossy feel-good “girl power” energy, ensuring that its audience never once feels true discomfort when discussing uncomfortable truths.

Call Jane is now showing in theaters.

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‘Call Jane’ Review: Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver Shine as Underground Abortionists

This historical drama combines compassion, urgency and wit as it examines women helping women in the not-so-distant bad old days

This review was originally posted for the film’s world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

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” screenwriter Phyllis Nagy incisively, humanely explores that in her gripping, personable drama “Call Jane,” the story of a suburban Chicago housewife (Elizabeth Banks) encountering an underground network of women facilitating safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade.

The Janes were real, an activist collective operating illegally but diligently to help pregnant women from all walks of life through a very particular hardship, and their incredible story is the subject of 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 cha-cha music stops, and we hear in the distance the famous 1968 anti-war 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 set up with a blindfolded ride from Gwen (a rock-solid Wunmi Mosaku, “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 moves (drawn from the real trajectory of the Janes, if here attributed mostly to a fictional character) make for wonderfully suspenseful, emboldening, and even humorous scenes of problem-solving and maneuvering.

Banks is the ideal avatar for this evolution, too, magnetic as she is with conveying the percolating smarts and hidden strength underneath a composed appearance. Weaver, meanwhile, is excellent as the tart-tongued mother radical newly energized by the forward-thinking “Jackie O,” as she teasingly refers to Joy, furthering 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 what they had to do to give aid, comfort, and hope to women with nowhere to go. At its richest and most riveting, when it’s seizing your breath or making you laugh or opening your eyes, “Call Jane” is about what it takes to come to that realization about true liberation, and what it means to see it through. 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” opens in US theaters Oct. 28.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Engaging, well-acted drama about underground abortions.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Encourages women to advocate for their reproductiv

The Janes all risk their personal safety and freed

Most characters are White and middle/upper-middle

Movie begins with silhouette of police beating up

A married couple kiss and make out partly undresse

Occasional strong language, including one use of h

Smirnoff vodka, a couple of car logos.

Adult characters frequently smoke cigarettes and h

Parents need to know that Call Jane is a drama about the real-life group of underground Chicago abortion facilitators who called themselves the "Jane Collective" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, the movie follows a fictionalized suburban housewife whose…

Positive Messages

Encourages women to advocate for their reproductive rights, to make sure they have a voice in their own health decisions, to trust their instincts. Also promotes compassion, empathy, perseverance, teamwork, and the importance of women working with and for other women.

Positive Role Models

The Janes all risk their personal safety and freedom to help women in need receive counseling and essential medical care. Joy lies to her family about what she's doing when she's away from home, but she does love, encourage, and support her daughter and husband.

Diverse Representations

Most characters are White and middle/upper-middle class, but story does center on a woman taking charge of her life in the interests of helping other women. Movie was written by women and directed by a queer woman (Phyllis Nagy). Supporting character Gwen (Wunmi Mosaku) is Black and brings up the need for intersectionality in reproductive rights work, particularly as the Janes' work tends to ignore the needs of poor Black and Brown women. A couple of women are cued as lesbians, but aside from a homophobic comment the doctor uses, it's never expressly revealed who is queer.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Movie begins with silhouette of police beating up a protester. A pregnant woman faints and is deemed to have a life-threatening condition. She begins to fixate on how to end her pregnancy by various means. Several non-graphic scenes of women as they receive D&Cs and terminate pregnancies include their discomfort, fear, and the syringes/tools used. Arguments and yelling.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A married couple kiss and make out partly undressed in bed a couple of times; no nudity or full sex scenes. Two people take off items of clothing while playing a strip-based drinking game. (She makes him a deal by offering to take off her blouse, without a bra on, but it turns out she has a different undergarment on underneath her blouse.) The man is shirtless. A married person kisses someone who isn't their spouse, but they're both apologetic and cut the kiss short.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional strong language, including one use of homophobic slur "d-ke," a few uses of "f--k" and "f--king," "s--t," "hell," "capitalist pig," "ass," "bastard," "ballbuster," etc.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Adult characters frequently smoke cigarettes and have wine, beer, and cocktails. In one scene, a man and woman drink shots and play a stripping game. Two characters share a marijuana joint; one jokes that the other needs to "puff, puff, pass." A character who uses pot for the first time gets very amorous and has the munchies.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Call Jane is a drama about the real-life group of underground Chicago abortion facilitators who called themselves the "Jane Collective" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver , the movie follows a fictionalized suburban housewife whose dangerous pregnancy causes her to call the Jane hotline before clandestinely becoming a reproductive rights activist herself. She and the other Janes demonstrate empathy, compassion, perseverance, and teamwork. Expect a few potentially difficult or triggering scenes of women as they have abortions, although the procedure itself, while explained, is never shown in detail, and there are no graphic images. Adults drink recreationally and in one case play a strip drinking game. Two characters share a marijuana joint, and people also smoke regular cigarettes. Occasional but not overly frequent strong language includes "s--t," "f--k," "f--king," and the homophobic slur "d-ke." Families with teens can discuss the history of the abortion debate, the reality of underground abortion networks, and the overarching issue of equity in health care. Parents and teens can also research the real Jane Collective and the women who worked there together. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

CALL JANE is a fictional narrative based on the true story of the Jane Collective. In pre- Roe v. Wade Chicago, homemaker Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ) and her junior law partner husband, Will ( Chris Messina ), have a teenage daughter but are also expecting a baby. Then Joy is informed that she has a life-threatening condition that will likely kill her if she carries to term. She expects the hospital to allow her to terminate the pregnancy, but when her doctor's request is denied, she panics. She considers throwing herself down the stairs or getting a back-alley abortion but then stumbles on a flyer that encourages women with unplanned pregnancies to call Jane. So Joy reaches out to the underground abortion network. On the day of her procedure, Joy meets her assigned "Jane" escort, Gwen ( Wunmi Mosaku ), the brusque but efficient doctor, Dean (Cory Michael Smith), and the Jane Collective's group of mostly White, educated feminists, led by determined organizer Virginia ( Sigourney Weaver ). As Joy recovers, Virginia calls in a favor to ask Joy to drive another client to the procedure location. The experience inspires Joy to help again, and soon she becomes a Jane herself, finding purpose and sisterhood.

Is It Any Good?

Banks gives a commendable performance as a composite character who, while appealing, ultimately isn't as compelling as the real women who were part of the Jane movement. By centering on the fictionalized characters of suburban mom Joy and veteran activist Virginia, director Phyllis Nagy (working from a screenplay by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi) ages up the Janes' main activists (they were largely college age in real life). But this allows Joy to become a stand-in for the average educated, middle-class White woman of the time. She loves her husband and daughter, but she wants her own purpose and work, and the Janes provide that. Messina is believable as a new partner who's genuinely confused by his usually attentive wife's disappearing act. Weaver stands out as the seemingly all-knowing, no-nonsense director of the Janes, and Mosaku, whose Gwen is based on a real person, is memorable as the group's sole Black activist, who tries (mostly in vain, alas) to get the Janes to see how they're leaving behind low-income and Black and Brown women.

Greta Zozula's cinematography smartly uses close-ups during the procedure scenes, and the soundtrack is on-point for the time period, with a wonderful inclusion of Jennifer Warnes' cover of "Let the Sunshine In" at the end of the film. The first two-thirds of the story are well paced, even though the script ignores obvious questions about why Joy and Will would be having a second baby 15 years after their first, or how the Janes got started and ended up vaguely protected by mobsters and cops. But by the last act, there are a few tonal shifts and iffy plot twists. Joy is portrayed as being singular in her essential contribution to the Janes, but in real life, more than one volunteer rose up to do what she did. The movie should inspire more research into the real women who risked their lives -- and eventually went to jail -- to provide safe access to abortions. HBO's documentary The Janes provides a comprehensive view of the movement and features interviews with the real Janes.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Call Jane 's messages. Do you think it's trying to persuade viewers to feel one way or the other about abortion? Why is this issue still relevant? Parents, discuss your thoughts about reproductive rights with your teens.

Movies sometimes use humor to tackle difficult subjects. In what way does this film do so, and is it successful?

How does the movie portray all the reasons women call the Janes? Why does Joy initially judge women for their circumstances? What are the messages the movie shares about support and community?

What does Gwen means when she says that the cost of the procedure disproportionately poses a barrier for Black and Brown women? How does the movie address the idea of intersectionality?

For those who've read about or seen The Janes , the HBO documentary about the Janes, how does this "inspired by real events" movie deviate from the true story?

Movie Details

• In theaters : October 28, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : November 25, 2022
• Cast : Elizabeth Banks , Sigourney Weaver , Chris Messina , Wunmi Mosaku
• Director : Phyllis Nagy
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors, Female writers
• Studio : Roadside Attractions
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Activism , Friendship , History
• Character Strengths : Compassion , Empathy , Teamwork
• Run time : 121 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : some language and brief drug use
• Last updated : February 24, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Call Jane review: A rousing, relevant drama

“Call Jane is an entertaining and undeniably important social drama that, nonetheless, feels a bit too predictable and safe to leave the kind of lasting mark that it should.”

• An incredible true story, competently told
• Elizabeth Banks' confident, layered lead performance
• Standout supporting performances
• An abrupt ending
• A shaggy second act
• A script that feels a bit too safe

Call Jane has a habit of sneaking up on you. The new film from director Phyllis Nagy is a reproductive rights drama that, thanks to the events of this year , has become far more relevant than anyone involved could have ever predicted it would become. Despite that fact, Call Jane is a surprisingly understated, often unsentimental drama, one that prefers to lull you into its rhythms before it hits you with the power of its biggest moments or, in the case of one harrowing abortion scene, smallest details.

That approach becomes clear in Call Jane ’s first scene, which follows its protagonist, Joy (Elizabeth Banks), as she quietly walks through the building where her husband, Will (Chris Messina), is celebrating his latest promotion. The film’s camera follows Joy as she descends down an escalator and then makes her way silently across the building’s ground floor to its entrance. Once outside, we’re surprised to find Joy standing behind an unwavering police line. In the distance, the sound of chanting grows increasingly louder.

We never see the riot that inevitably breaks out. Instead, all we see are the silhouettes of bodies pressing up against the frosted glass of the building’s front windows as Joy is hurriedly rushed back inside. As far as openings go, Call Jane ’s introductory sequence proves to be a perfectly explosive introduction to a film that is primarily concerned with confronting, among other things, the kind of painful and celebratory truths that America’s political leaders would rather keep buried beneath the surface.

As its first scene establishes, Call Jane ’s protagonist lives the kind of sheltered, traditional life that is often expected of 1960s American housewives like her. Joy’s world is turned upside down, however, when she discovers that she has a heart condition that is worsened by her own pregnancy. Joy is told there’s a high chance she’ll die if she remains pregnant, but her request for an emergency abortion is then summarily denied by the heads of her local hospital. In response, Joy begins seeking out a way for her to secure a safe abortion procedure on her own.

Her pursuit eventually leads to Joy crossing paths for the first time with the Jane Collective, a female-led underground network of women who make it their mission to provide women with illegal but safe abortions. The collective, which really operated in America throughout the late 1960s and early ’70s, is run by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver), a chill but commanding feminist. The collective provides Joy with the abortion she requires, but her relationship with the organization doesn’t end there.

Enlivened by the support and community provided by the Janes, Joy becomes increasingly embedded in their operation, even going so far as to form a relationship with the collective’s chosen doctor, Dean (Cory Michael Smith). In doing so, Joy opens the door for the Janes to become less dependent on Dean’s egotistical, financially-driven perspective toward giving women access to safe abortions. From there, Joy embarks on a rise that never feels quite as daring or provocative as it should, even though Call Jane repeatedly reminds us of the gaps that Joy’s secret life with the Janes has the potential to create between her, her husband, and her teenage daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards).

Despite the achievements that its female characters make throughout Call Jane ’s 121-minute runtime, the film’s plot unfolds in a way that feels, at times, disappointingly straightforward and predictable. The relevance of the film’s story is undeniable, but in its attempts to normalize a topic that deserves to be discussed more openly and frankly, Call Jane ends up feeling strangely sanitized and safe. Joy’s transformation from content housewife to fierce activist goes largely unchallenged throughout the film, and while Call Jane occasionally feints at provocative detours and topics, it never fully grapples with the thorns that linger at the edges of its story.

That’s not to say that Call Jane doesn’t tell its story in a competent or compelling way. The film is, with the exception of certain shaggy sections in its second act, an engrossing and entertaining drama that moves through its story at a consistently brisk, upbeat pace. As the film’s director, Nagy makes the most out of certain sequences throughout Call Jane , including its impressive opening and the sequence in which Banks’ Joy gets her abortion. The latter scene plays out at a patient pace, one that wisely forces the viewer to sit in the room with Joy as she struggles to not let her nerves overwhelm her.

It’s in moments like that, when Joy’s toughened exterior briefly fades away, that Banks’ performance shines brightest. Opposite her, Sigourney Weaver leans all the way into her character’s chill, late-1960s hippie vibe, bringing an unwaveringly calm presence to Call Jane that acts as the perfect counterbalance to the fierce, prideful energy present in Banks’ Joy. Outside of them, Wunmi Mosaku also turns in another reliably memorable supporting performance as Gwen, the only Black member of the Jane Collective.

Ultimately, Call Jane ’s impact is dulled slightly by its own limited scope, as well as its disinterest in seriously investigating the darker parts of its characters’ lives. For that reason, it’s Call Jane ’s opening scene that seems to best reflect the film itself, which dazzles and entrances in parts but remains content only ever alluding to the tougher aspects of its plot. The film’s lively, infectious energy, combined with its inherent relevance, makes it well worth seeking out. Don’t be surprised, though, if you find yourself disappointed by just how non-confrontationally the film brings to life a story that could have benefitted from being told with a bit more attitude.

Call Jane is now playing in select theaters .

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Call Jane Review: A Well-Meaning But Strangely Simplified Look At The Jane Collective [Sundance 2022]

Anytime I see someone claiming "This is the movie we need right now!", I get a little antsy. It's such a bold, broad claim and it's almost never accurate. Still, I can appreciate the sentiment, and it's fair to say that Phyllis Nagy's "Call Jane" is an important movie — or perhaps it's more accurate to describe it as a movie about an important subject. Nagy's film is based (loosely, it would seem) on the true story of the Jane Network, an underground group providing women with abortion services in Chicago between 1969 to 1973. At the time, abortion was still illegal nationwide. Roe vs. Wade changed that, but now, here in 2022, abortion is perilously close to being illegal again. Texas has essentially already outlawed it on a state level, and America's right-leaning Supreme Court seems poised to do the same thing on a grander scale. For the country to come so far only to now go backward is appalling. 

So, yes, "Call Jane," a film about abortion, is coming along at a needed time. And it is with that in mind that we can, perhaps, forgive some of the film's flaws. "Call Jane" feels streamlined for the mainstream, but maybe that's not such a bad thing right now. Perhaps getting this story out to the widest possible audience is ideal. Perhaps a slickly-made product featuring famous faces is exactly the sort of thing we need. Or perhaps not. Perhaps letting "Call Jane" off the hook is tantamount to not treating its issues seriously enough. It certainly doesn't help that the film's tone is a little all over the place, running the gamut between "Very Serious Drama" and "Kind Of A Comedy". Nagy employs one too many montages here to move things along, and with the wide cast of characters, it can start to feel like we've accidentally stumbled into a heist flick.

It's 1968, and cheery housewife Joy (Elizabeth Banks) is pregnant with her second child. However, after learning about a medical condition, it becomes clear that Joy can't have her baby — doing so could very well put her own life in danger. That doesn't seem to concern the council of doctors Joy and her husband (Chris Messina) turn to for help with terminating the pregnancy. To undergo such a procedure, Joy needs the approval of this group of stern-faced men, all of whom deny her request while acting as if she wasn't in the same room with them. Desperate, Joy first considers throwing herself down the stairs to induce a miscarriage. Then she heads off to a dirty, grimy "doctor's office" in an apartment to undergo an abortion, but gets cold feet and flees. Immediately after this escape, Joy spots a flyer aimed at pregnant women with a phone number and a mysterious statement: "Call Jane."  

As it turns out, there is no Jane. Instead, there's a collective of women who are part of an underground organization run by Virginia (Sigourney Weaver). After some cloak and dagger stuff involving blindfolds and a secret car ride (remember: These women were breaking the law at the time, and therefore understandably paranoid about getting caught), Joy is able to undergo an abortion — and then almost immediately gets roped into helping out the group. 

Banks is doing great work here, perhaps the best of her career. She plays Joy as a traditional-ish housewife, but that doesn't mean she's some brainwashed Stepford resident. She has hopes and dreams of her own, and is certainly far more progressive than her neighbor, a nosy, Nixon-voting widow played by Kate Mara. But because Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi's script is often so light, Banks also gets to flex her comedic chops. Weaver is also stellar as the no-nonsense Virginia, but you also begin to wonder why the movie needs Joy at all. Sure, the explanation is that Joy is the audience surrogate; the outsider who brings us along into the film's world. But wouldn't it be better to focus on Weaver's Virginia, and let us watch her build the Jane Network up? By making Virginia a background player, "Call Jane" often feels like it's taking an easy path. That to focus on someone like Virginia would be too messy and ambitious, and it's better to stay simple.

The same is true with how the rest of the group is portrayed. We learn almost nothing about the other women Joy meets; some of them don't even have names, they simply drift about in the background of scenes. There's only one Black member of the group, Gwen, and while Wunmi Mosaku is quite good in the role, the role itself is severely underwritten. Gwen does get one big scene where she and Virginia argue about how the collective deals with other Black women in need of services, but this moment is presented almost as an afterthought, or as if it's been included to merely tick a box before quickly getting back to Joy and her story. 

Quiet Simplicity

Nagy and company do find ways to liven the film up and give it an identity of its own. The group's doctor, a comically young-looking guy played by Cory Michael Smith, is refreshingly complex (he overcharges for her services and he's kind of a jerk, but he's also not presented as a full-blown villain). And Messina's husband figure is supporting in ways that feel appropriate for the era, rather than simply making him an ultra-modern, super-progressive business guy who seems incredibly out of place in the '60s. I also appreciated the way the film keeps the cultural shifts of the era somewhat in the background while still acknowledging them — an opening moment finds Joy watching a Yippie protest, but we never see the protestors; we merely hear them and see their shadows flickering on the side of a building. A late-breaking scene involving a cop who seems like a serious threat until he doesn't is also quite powerful in its quiet simplicity. In addition to all that, the movie also doesn't shy away from showing abortion procedures.

Still, I wanted more. Specifically, I wanted more insight into the Jane Network as a whole — how it started, how it operated. Virginia mentions that she had to pay off the mafia more than once, and that's the sort of detail that feels like it should be explored more instead of being casually tossed off as an anecdote. But the film is so laser-focused on Joy there's often no room for anything, or anyone else. But I hope "Call Jane" finds a wide audience, and if the film's somewhat sanitized portrayal of events helps change a few minds in regards to the issues at hand, that will be a net good.

But wouldn't it be better to go deeper? To give viewers an even more in-depth portrait of what's going on here? Surely that would help with the cause, too. I can appreciate that the film wants to present its subject matter in simpler terms, and I can appreciate that the film isn't constantly screaming about HOW IMPORTANT THIS ALL IS in big capital letters. It's hard to fault a film with such noble intentions, but that doesn't mean "Call Jane" couldn't have done a better job. 

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Screen Rant

Call jane review: banks is great in timely, but anticlimactic drama [sundance].

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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.

Related:  Dual Review: Karen Gillan Is A Double In Intriguing, Yet Flat Sci-Fi Drama [Sundance]  

Call Jane is indeed about an important subject, now more than ever as abortion rights are once again being threatened, with the state of Texas already having outlawed it. And while the film treats the eponymous network as a crucial service for women, it barely reflects on the dangers of their work. Abortion was illegal and, though Nagy makes sure to include the blindfolds and precautions taken by the collective, Call Jane  underplays the real-world implications their work had on their lives. The stakes are simply too low and lack tension, save for a couple of instances when Nagy plays into the audience's expectations surrounding the dangers before pulling back to make it a conflict specifically for Joy and her family.

To that end, framing the story through Joy’s perspective and her work’s impact on her home life is too narrow and undermines the rest of the characters. An issue arises between Joy and her daughter, who is feeling neglected because her mom’s always away, but it falls flat in the grand scheme of things and fails to create any real intensity  Call Jane seems intent on avoiding altogether. It goes the typical route without ever venturing outside of its conventional setup. Considering the film’s subject matter, there’s a strange lack of urgency and depth. Virginia mentions some of the things she’s had to do to keep the underground network a secret and safe, including paying off the mob, but they’re said in passing and don’t carry the weight of what that means for everyone involved. At any point, these women could have been arrested, but Call Jane makes little of the danger of the work, rarely adding depth to the cause or the other women working alongside Joy (and who have been there for longer).

All that said, Elizabeth Banks is stunning as Joy. She adds depth with her eyes and expressions, moving from one emotion to the next with ease, lacing each moment with nuance. Through Joy, viewers see the range of one woman’s experience — from a comfortable, financially well-off person to a goal-oriented woman who aims to help others by learning and moving forward. And while Joy is indeed a good character, everything happens far too easily in the film. Relegating other characters, including Weaver’s Virginia and Mosaku’s Gwen, to the sidelines does Call Jane no favors, undermining the collective as a whole and failing to explore who these women are beyond their interactions with Joy. Despite their limited roles, however, Mosaku and Weaver are excellent, infusing passion and intrigue into their underdeveloped characters.

To be sure, the film certainly has the right idea and highlights a crucial time in the history of abortion rights, especially now that it's back in the cultural conversation (not that it ever really went away), and Call Jane  does well to center such a deeply important subject. But it’s the execution that could have used a lot more work as there’s no sense of the overarching issues. The film is ultimately underwhelming and lacking the urgency needed to drive the story and lend realistic consequences to their endeavor.

Next:  Good Luck To You, Leo Grande Review: Thompson Leads A Charming Dramedy [Sundance]

Call Jane premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film is 121 minutes long and is not yet rated.

Call Jane (2022)

Call Jane, directed by Phyllis Nagy, follows a suburban housewife named Joy who turns to an underground abortion network, known as the Janes, for help in a time of personal crisis. Set in the 1960s, the film features Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, highlighting the struggles and defiance of women seeking reproductive rights before Roe v. Wade.

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Review: The characters in timely pre-Roe abortion drama ‘Call Jane’ never feel like people

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“Are you Jane?”

It’s a question that Chicago housewife Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ) repeatedly asks, as she calls a number from a flier, is picked up in a car, blindfolded, driven to a nondescript office where she receives an illegal but safe abortion from an unfeeling doctor (Cory Michael Smith), and then is cared for by an eclectic group of women. In this group, no one is Jane, but they are all Jane, the generic alias that shields their identities becoming the de facto name for this underground network of women providing abortion care in the years before Roe vs. Wade. In “Call Jane,” director Phyllis Nagy (Oscar-nominated screenwriter of “Carol”), working from a script by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi, crafts an unconventional biopic, not of any real person but of Jane, the collective.

That “Jane” was an alias, an avatar, is part of the problem with “Call Jane,” in which all of the fictionalized characters — Joy; Virginia ( Sigourney Weaver ), the organizer behind the group; Joy’s husband, Will (Chris Messina); her daughter (Grace Edwards); neighbor Lana (Kate Mara) — never feel like real people but indeed, avatars, merely representatives or devices to move the plot along.

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Joy is an opaquely written character, a housewife who is never able to fully express her own wants, needs and desires. Banks, working with limited material, delivers a distinctive and stealthily effective performance, using Joy’s inexpressiveness as a character trait. She plays Joy as withdrawn and soft-spoken. Despite her demure exterior, Joy quietly slides in sly barbs loaded with double meaning about the unfairness of her position, whether it’s her husband complaining about frozen meatloaf, or a panel of cartoonishly evil white male doctors denying her the right to the “therapeutic termination” of a pregnancy that’s threatening her life.

After Joy’s abortion, Virginia recruits her as a volunteer driver, and Joy is drawn to providing care to women in their time of need. She starts by comforting them during the procedure, eventually assisting the doctor, before finally demanding he teach her how to perform abortions herself. This is all a part of the Jane collective’s story, also depicted this year in the documentary “The Janes,” streaming on HBO Max.

It often feels like “Call Jane’s” largely excellent cast struggles against a shallow script and underdeveloped characters, their psychology and backgrounds unclear. As the women of Jane debate who they can assist, there’s something that rings hollow, the dialogue landing like talking points rather than authentic human discussion. Nagy’s strength as a director, however, is in her patience with sensitive scenes. As Joy undergoes her procedure, each step and wince is painstakingly laid out, and in quiet but loaded moments between Joy and Will, the unspoken vibrates tellingly between them.

The women who provided abortions before Roe give a ‘grim’ glimpse of life after it

In HBO’s “The Janes,” women who defied abortion laws in pre-Roe Chicago speak out: “The true story is more dramatic than a fictional one.”

June 8, 2022

Greta Zozula’s cinematography offers a period-appropriate warmth and grain to the film, and some unusual compositions make it visually fascinating at times. But there’s also the unshakeable sense that something went awry in the edit, as certain suspenseful yet inexplicable moments are ushered in without fanfare and abruptly dropped, like a visit from an undercover cop (John Magaro) that goes to unexpected places, and then nowhere else.

The ending is abrupt, glossing over the real-life 1972 raid with an unexplained mention in passing. As the women celebrate the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which renders their operation obsolete, the tone is frankly jarring. Though “Call Jane” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2022, months before the Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision in June, it’s surprising that the film was not amended, at least with text at the end, to address that.

“Call Jane” offers a heartening message about the long, ongoing legacy of women helping other women access abortion healthcare, legal or not. Though the film is politically and culturally urgent, it’s too much of a challenge to connect with the void of character at the core of this screenplay. We may all have the power to be Jane, but the image of Jane remains frustratingly hazy in Nagy’s depiction.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'Call Jane'

Rated: R, for some language and brief drug use Running time: 2 hours, 1 minute Playing: Starts Oct. 28 in general release

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Call jane - movie review.

An ad in Ladies Home Journal said it best when it warned us to “never underestimate the power of a woman.” Though the ad first appeared in a 1941 edition of the magazine, it wasn’t until the ’60s that we all learned the power of that lesson. And it’s been a downhill slide for male domination, sexism, and misogynistic tendencies ever since.

That message is perfectly illustrated in Phyllis Nagy ’s latest film, Call Jane which explores the sobering and painful history of reproductive choice in America, while simultaneously recognizing and celebrating the contributions of women to modern society.

The film takes an introspective look at The Janes, a collective of women in the late ‘60s who came together to help provide access to reproductive freedom to Chicago women of all walks of life. Though The Janes were a real thing, Call Jane fictionalizes their spirit and goals with a story that is both provocative and stimulating, yet never comes off as preachy.

Joy (a wonderful Elizabeth Banks ) is the quintessential suburban housewife. Loving wife to husband Will ( Chris Messina ), and mother to teenage daughter Charlotte ( Grace Edwards ), Joy learns that her current pregnancy has caused some heart issues leaving her with a 50% chance of surviving the delivery of her baby.

Having run out of options, but also wanting to ensure she’ll be around for their daughter, Joy and Will petition the board of their local hospital for an emergency pregnancy termination. But, wouldn’t you know it, the board is made up of old white men who discuss the petition as if Joy isn’t even in the room.

As expected, the elephant in the room is the hot button topic of abortion. However, to steer viewers away from political side-taking, Nagy and screenwriters Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi present their story with a light touch in a fair, and balanced manner by masterfully blending many other narratives into the mix. As a result, viewers are never bludgeoned over the head, but instead, invited to join the tough conversations which touch on abortion, race, personal choice, human dignity, and historical advancement.

That’s certainly a gargantuan task considering the subject matter, but the cast of wonderful characters played by Kate Mara, Kristina Harrison, Corey Michael Smith, Evangeline Young , and others, keeps it a human story about one woman’s choice, the personal struggles of making that choice, and her decision to help others in similar situations navigate the emotional toll of those decisions.

A bit fidgety and eventually losing steam in its third act, Call Jane feels a bit long at times, and more than one plot thread is oddly left hanging. However, the genuinely heartbreaking scenes involving the procedures as delivered by a shady “doctor” will leave you shaking in your skin. Truly graphic and alone responsible for the film’s R rating.

Call Jane isn’t asking you to buy in to what it has to say. It just wants to present the dilemma at hand in a captivating and stimulating manner, while at the same time reminding us of that powerful lesson we learned from Ladies Home Journal so long ago. Mission accomplished.

MPAA Rating: R for some language and brief drug use. Runtime: 121 mins Director : Phyllis Nagy Writer: Hayley Schore; Roshan Sethi Cast: Elizabeth Banks; Sigourney Weaver; Chris Messina Genre : Drama Tagline: You are not alone. Memorable Movie Quote: Theatrical Distributor: Roadside Attractions Official Site: Release Date: October 28, 2022. DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: Synopsis : A married woman with an unwanted pregnancy lives in a time in America where she can't get a legal abortion and works with a group of suburban women to find help.

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Call Jane Review

04 Nov 2022

Call Jane  opens with bored, glammed-up suburban housewife Joy ( Elizabeth Banks , coiffed like Betty Draper from  Mad Men ) stumbling into a line of riot police facing off against ‘hippy freak’ protesters. She’s horrified when she witnesses one of them slammed against the wall and beaten while she’s ushered away. This first scene neatly contextualises this story: the times they are a changin’, and Joy must soon confront the reality of living in late 1960s America. Sadly, it's a reality that has unexpected timeliness today after the US Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022, ending the national legality of abortions in the US.

Director Phyllis Nagy , best known for her Academy Award-nominated screenplay for  Carol , brings humour and heart to this fictionalised story of the Jane Collective, a group who provided safe but illegal abortions in the late '60s. Denied a legal abortion even though her pregnancy will kill her, Joy finds a literal lifeline on a poster telling her to ‘Call Jane’, and transforms from sorrowful to a symbol of hope and renewal. Shot on time period-authentic 16mm film,  Call Jane  doesn’t shy away from the terror of obtaining an illegal abortion. Joy’s procedure plays out in real time, rendered all the more harrowing with tight close-ups on Banks’ stricken face.

But the film is hardly as grim as it might sound. Joy, and the audience alongside her, is enveloped by the warmth of Sigourney Weaver ’s tough-as-nails Virginia and her inspiring, never judgmental gang of activists helping women with nowhere else to turn. Elizabeth Banks, always a reliable comedic actor, gives Joy a sense of, well, joy, even when her secret strains her family life to breaking point. Nothing is particularly revelatory about the filmmaking here, and it certainly covers a difficult and dangerous time in history with a Hollywood sheen. But thanks to a sharp script and winning performances — who wouldn’t trust Sigourney Weaver with their life? —  Call Jane  threads the needle of being serious without being preachy, funny without feeling frivolous.

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Directed by Phyllis Nagy

You are not alone.

A married woman with an unwanted pregnancy lives in a time in America where she can't get a legal abortion and works with a group of suburban women to find help.

Elizabeth Banks Sigourney Weaver Chris Messina Wunmi Mosaku Kate Mara Cory Michael Smith Grace Edwards John Magaro Aida Turturro Emily Creighton Gina Jun Rebecca Henderson Bianca D'Ambrosio

Director Director

Phyllis Nagy

Producers Producers

Robbie Brenner David M. Wulf Julien Lemaitre Lee Broda Claude Amadeo Michael D'Alto Kevin McKeon

Writers Writers

Hayley Schore Roshan Sethi

Casting Casting

Sheila Jaffe Bryan Riley

Editor Editor

Peter McNulty

Cinematography Cinematography

Greta Zozula

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Hayley Schore Roshan Sethi Judy Bart Erica Kahn Peter Touche Christelle Conan Iris Smith Jeff Rice Joseph Lanius

Production Design Production Design

Jona Tochet

Art Direction Art Direction

Garrett Lowe

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Lauren Crawford

Composer Composer

Isabella Summers

Sound Sound

Jason King Russell Topal Derek Vanderhorst

Costume Design Costume Design

Julie Weiss

Makeup Makeup

Margina Dennis Aria Ferraro Missy Scarbrough Jackie Zbuska

Ingenious Media Unburdened Entertainment Redline Entertainment FirstGen Content RB Entertainment Our Turn Productions LB Entertainment Roadside Attractions

Releases by Date

21 jan 2022, 14 oct 2022, 26 oct 2022, theatrical limited, 27 oct 2022, 23 feb 2023, 28 oct 2022, 04 nov 2022, 11 nov 2022, 24 nov 2022, 25 nov 2022, 01 dec 2022, 10 feb 2023, 08 mar 2023, 11 may 2023, 04 aug 2023, 22 nov 2022, releases by country.

• Digital 12 MyCanal
• Theatrical 12
• Premiere Jakarta World Cinema Week

Puerto Rico

• Theatrical limited R

South Korea

• Theatrical Btl

Switzerland

• Theatrical 6+
• Premiere BFI London Film Festival
• Theatrical 12A
• Premiere Sundance Film Festival (Virtual)
• Theatrical R

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Popular reviews

Review by Abbie ★★★½

Ringo Starr be out here performing back alley abortions

Review by Kevflix And Chill ★★★½ 5

A dramatic look into The Janes Collective , an underground abortion network in pre-Roe V. Wade Chicago. Told through the fictional lens of Joy ( Elizabeth Banks ) who’s pregnancy is causing her congestive heart failure and is informed that an abortion may be her only cure. But when the board of physicians votes against the exception that would allow for the procedure, she’s left to seek alternative methods. In the Janes Collective , she finds her answer and possibly a new calling. Examining the struggles that the Janes faced, the film touches on the disparities in race and class albeit in a rather oversimplified manner. Still, it’s an effective drama with an impressive performance from Banks  an overall worthy addition to this Supreme watchlist .  

2022 Ranked

Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1 1. Bruce MacVittie and Kevin Bacon in He Said, She Said

Review by san ★★★

too passive for its length, but still poignant and understated. the fact that this takes place in the 60s yet could be a situation happening today is a horror.

Review by Kylo ★★★

I’m so happy Sigourney just keeps making movies. What an absolute icon. This was good. A very worthy story. Elisabeth Banks also gives a great performance in the main role.

Review by margot ★★★★½ 1

her daughter was like fully 23 when she was supposed to be “i just got my period” age 😭

Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★½

SUNDANCE 2022

"Nobody’s Jane. We’re all Jane."

Phyllis Nagy made this film about “the power of exercising choice” as she stated in her introduction to the film at Sundance this year. Phyllis Nagy (writer of Carol ) makes her feature directorial debut.

Joy (Elizabeth Banks) goes through a radical transformation as a strait-laced housewife who ends up helping women in a way she never thought possible. First, Joy finds herself at the whims of her husband; she also needs approval for a medical procedure from an all-male board at the hospital who aren't eager to put themselves in her shoes.

“It’s life or death for all of them.”

I love the fact that Phyllis Nagy is here to educate the younger…

Review by Nick ★★★½ 3

Sundance Watch #2

This is a pretty good movie that sheds light on an important (especially today) & underrepresented story with a solid cast and performances. Also directed by the woman who wrote Carol , a movie I still need to see but don’t think I’ve ever heard bad things about. 

As good as I thought this was, my only complaint is it felt too formulaic/pedestrian for a movie tackling the topic of abortion. Not that every movie addressing abortion needs to have this to be successful, but it felt like it missed an opportunity to make a more resounding statement, especially in today’s unfortunate climate. Even the ending felt like it was missing the emotional high you’d expect from that kind…

Review by DNA cinephile🏳️‍🌈 ★★★★ 4

Call Jane. 2022. Directed by Phyllis Nagy.

Call Jane (2022) directed by Phyllis Nagy (Carol screenplay) was a much needed film in a world where women have to fight for abortions yet again. History repeats itself in such cruel ways. Despite the changes in laws, Call Jane shows how women can show up for each other and help. There are trillions of dollars floating on this Planet. Some of this money can be used to assist women in need of a safe abortion. We have donated our share and many more need to step up to help others in need. Call Jane is a great example of women and men working together to change laws and get the job done. Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, and Chris Messina give standout roles in this engaging drama on a most pertinent topic. Great film for the cause.

Review by Lynn Betts ★★★★½ 4

Strangely and unfortunately, this is timely. Solid performances from everyone involved.

Review by Matt Neglia ★★★

CALL JANE shines a spotlight on the pre Roe v Wade Jane Collective through the eyes of one particular 1960s housewife decently played by Elizabeth Banks. Phyllis Nagy provides a competently breezy hand to the storytelling but I kept waiting for it to ascend to a higher level, especially given the vitally urgent subject matter. Sigourney Weaver is unsurprisingly the MVP, as the head of the underground abortion clinic.

Sundance #22

Review by JBird ★★★½

Sometimes Elizabeth Banks, Does things without any thanks. When laws are shoddy, Regarding the body, She'll climb up through the Jane ranks.

-----and-----

Lawmakers think they know best, Believing all laws should be "blessed". They can't separate, Church from the State, Keeping all healthcare repressed.

Review by The Oscar Expert ★★★½ 3

A breezy, surprisingly feel-good story of a housewife who became involved in the charming world of underground abortions. Nothing transcendent here but enjoyable all around.

Full Review

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They May Have Been Gone, But They’re Still Classic

By isa barnett.

• Oct 27, 2022

Call Jane (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

CALL JANE (2022)

Starring Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro, Aida Turturro, Bianca D’Ambrosio, Bruce MacVittie, Rebecca Henderson, Maia Scalia, Sean King and Alison Jaye.

Screenplay by Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi.

Directed by Phyllis Nagy.

Distributed by Roadside Attractions. 121 minutes. Rated R.

Screened at the 2022 Philadelphia Film Festival.

For better or worse, Call Jane is one of the timeliest films to come out in recent months. In fact, it is even more vital than it was even when it was conceived. In a new United States where Roe vs. Wade has been struck down by the Supreme Court, Call Jane is a stark reminder of where we were before that ruling was made and what has been lost.

It takes us back to a world in which back-alley abortions and even more desperate measures were used to terminate an unwanted or medically unsafe pregnancy.

“Just throw yourself down the stairs, that’s what I did,” is one of the pieces of advice offered to Joy (Elizabeth Banks), an aging middle-class suburban housewife who was actually thrilled to find of her pregnancy, at least until her doctor explained to her that she probably would not survive the childbirth. Then she entered a morass of red tape, bureaucracy and dead ends trying to save her own life in a world where the laws counted the baby’s life above her own.

Unlike so many women of the time, Joy actually found a safe space – well, relatively safe – in the work of the Janes, a covert group of women had bonded together to provide safe abortions. (Well, again, relatively safe.) After having the procedure, Joy finds herself surprisingly becoming more and more involved in the group and the pro-choice movement.

It’s a very politically fraught subject, and Call Jane tackles the controversial story with tact and restraint. In a recent interview I did with director Phyllis Nagy, she said it was important to her “to make a film about something very serious with a light touch.”

Call Jane is not necessarily pro-abortion – it acknowledges anti-abortion positions as well – however it is pro- safe -abortions and pro women’s rights.

In a world where that is once again becoming rarer, it is important that we remember where we were before Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land. There are a whole series of draconian laws being suggested where older white guys decide what a woman can do with her body.

Dr. Mehmet Oz said just the other night in a Pennsylvania Senatorial Debate that the decision whether to terminate a pregnancy should be made by “women, doctors, local political leaders.” Of course, many of those same people can afford to get the abortions that they are denying the average woman. (We’re looking at you, Herschel Walker.)

Call Jane reminds us that the cold hard fact is that no one wants to get an abortion. It is a traumatic decision for anyone involved. However, sometimes it is necessary, and in those cases, it should be as safe as possible.

Sometimes we have to look back at the past to see the future. Call Jane does a very nice job of showing us where we have been – where we may be again very soon – and why we all have to get out and vote.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2022 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 27, 2022.

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Pop music really can change your life. That’s part of the setup of M. Night Shyamalan’s near-miss of a thriller “Trap,” a movie that feels less like the Night Brand than a lot of his twisty ventures, a pared-down version of what he does that needed a round or two more of fleshing out its best ideas and amplifying its visual language. Night is at his best when he has a team of craftspeople to help elevate his best ideas in films like “ The Sixth Sense ,” “ Old ” (a movie that has grown on me), and “ The Village ,” but “Trap” too often lacks the craftsmanship it needs to crackle with energy and tension. Despite these missteps, Josh Hartnett almost makes “Trap” worth seeing, imbuing his character with a playfulness that can be captivating. It’s a shame his great work sometimes feels trapped in a movie that doesn’t know what to do with it.

The majority of “Trap” unfolds at a place that can be truly terrifying for a parent forced to spend hundreds of dollars on the latest pop superstar. In this case, it’s Lady Raven, played by Night’s daughter Saleka Shyamalan, a pop star shaped in the image of someone like Taylor Swift – one of those performances wherein the average age in the crowd is in the teens, and everyone knows all the words. Saleka wrote and performed most of the music, and speaking bluntly, there’s a bit too much of it, especially because it’s not quite as catchy as T. Swift.

Attending this Lady Raven show in Philly is an average guy named Cooper (Hartnett) and his teen daughter Riley ( Ariel Donoghue ). Shortly after their arrival, and with minimal character development, Cooper notices a strong police presence at the venue, including heavily armed men at all the doors. Through a brief act of politeness, he earns the trust of a vendor ( Jonathan Langdon ) who lets him on a secret – the cops and feds are there because they know that a notorious serial killer named The Butcher is in the building. Cooper is that man.

Their plan to stop every man who leaves the building and basically put them in front of ace profiler Dr. Grant (a woefully miscast Hayley Mills , likely here just because she's famous for a different "Trap" movie and Night thought that was funny) to determine guilt makes absolutely no sense. Still, people buy a ticket for a movie like “Trap” knowing the premise, and Shyamalan’s film gets by on its set-up for a while, largely because it allows Hartnett to shine through the opening act. Hartnett makes numerous smart, subtle choices that convey Cooper’s precise personality, particularly in a sly smile that reveals how much this sociopath enjoys the unexpected challenge.

Sadly, Shyamalan’s script doesn’t give Hartnett’s performance the stage it deserves. Cooper should be a cagey genius, someone who has kept his identity secret from everyone in his life and only has to do so for a bit longer to escape capture again. Instead of sketching Cooper as the smartest person in the room, Shyamalan almost comically makes him into the luckiest. Cooper keeps narrowly averting exposure through what can only be called movie magic. And when Shyamalan’s concept is forced to leave the arena, it comes apart with a series of scenes that make increasingly little sense. There are numerous times when the answer to “Why would someone do that in that situation?” can only be “Because of the movie.”

There’s an undeniably unique energy at a concert for a major pop star, a place where people scream (usually with glee), the lighting can be unpredictable, and someone in the crowd may not be all they appear to be. It’s a clever setting for a thriller, and where most of “Trap” unfolds, but Shyamalan doesn’t do enough with the geography of the space. A better film conveys how even a massive arena can feel claustrophobic when thousands of people surround you. But the cinematography by ace director of photography Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (“ Challengers ”) is oddly captivated by the large screens over the stage instead of the actual performer. This approach is surely to keep us more trapped in Cooper’s POV, but it ends up making the actual Lady Raven performance feel lackluster when we watch most of it on a screen on a screen. The editing by Noemi Katharina Preiswerk (who also cut Night’s “A Knock at the Cabin”) also lacks the hum that “Trap” really needed to work.

Ultimately, there’s something to be said for a man who can get a movie like “Trap” made in today’s market. It’s a weird, unpredictable movie not based on a pre-existing IP, and we are in an era where there are depressingly few original ideas in blockbuster filmmaking. For that alone – and the Joshaissance clearly unfolding with “ Oppenheimer ” and now this – it’s tempting to give “Trap” a pass. It’s just too bad that it ultimately feels like the word people so often throw at pop music confections: disposable.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Trap (2024)

Rated PG-13

105 minutes

Josh Hartnett as Cooper

Ariel Donoghue as Riley

Saleka as Lady Raven

Hayley Mills as Dr. Grant

Alison Pill as Rachel

Marnie McPhail as Jody's Mom

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Troppo’ Season 2 on Prime Video, The Return Of The Thomas Jane-Starring Aussie Crime Drama 

Where to stream:.

• international crime drama

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wicked Little Letters’ on Netflix, A Twee Twentieth Century True Crime Tale in a British Town

Why is everyone obsessed with the ‘miami vice’ movie this week, stream it or skip it: ‘the victims’ game’ season 2 on netflix, the return of the taiwanese mystery thriller and its asperger’s syndrome protagonist , stream it or skip it: ‘dom’ season 3 on prime video, the final run for this brazilian crime drama and its charismatic, conflicted thief .

Troppo premieres all eight episodes of its second season at once on Prime Video , and it seems like Thomas Jane has only gotten more creaky, grizzled, and sweaty since this quirky, appealing Australian crime drama debuted back in 2022. Jane stars in Troppo alongside an also sweaty Nicole Chamoun – “Troppo,” after all, is Aussie slang for getting crazy from the heat – as private investigators, each with their share of personal baggage, who learn they have a knack for solving murders together. Sound familiar? Yes. But Troppo has a real sense of character and place. Who among us has been to Queensland? Adapted from the Crimson Lake crime thrillers by Australian author Candice Fox , Troppo season 2 is based on Redemption Point , the second book in the series. Radha Mitchell, Zindzi Okenyo, Angela Punch McGregor, and Simon Lyndon also co-star.   

TROPPO – SEASON 2 : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A coiled snake, an angry ostrich, and two lovers canoodling in a hollow, out in the sweltering Queensland bush. Suddenly a burning body falls out of the darkness. 

The Gist: The first season of Troppo established the prickly, fun rapport between disgraced former police detective Ted Conkaffey and resourceful private investigator Amanda Pharrell (Chamoun), while we also got up to speed on what made them unlikely PI partners in the first place. Ted, once on the force in Sydney, was falsely accused of abducting and assaulting an adolescent girl. Bogus charges, but he still separated from Kelly (Mitchell), who remained in Sydney with their daughter while he landed in the tiny North Queensland town of Crimson Lake. And that’s where he’s hired by Amanda, who chose a loner’s life in her hometown after doing a 12-year bit there for murder. They solved a murder together. Agreed to be partners in a private investigation outfit operated out of the back of a tattoo parlor/dive bar. And here we are as season 2 of Troppo begins. 

There’s another murder, of course. That whole burning body thing. And Pharrell-Konkaffey Investigations is quickly running its own looksee, even if Pip Sweeney (Okeyno), Crimson Lake’s new police investigator, warns them to stay away. The dead man ran a family retreat center near a wilderness area known as Redemption Point. He left behind troubled son Raph (Ethan Lwin) and Raph’s girlfriend Tylah (Miah Madden), both of whom could be hiding something. There’s another body in the mix, one with tats Amanda recognizes. And soon there are more leads to check out, like the activities of a violent “bikie” gang who operate in the region, and pushback on Sweeney’s methods from Val (McGregor), the town doctor/medical examiner. 

For as much as Ted and Amanda have become intuitive as partners – whatever anyone in town thinks of them, they’re actually pretty good at solving shit – the thing they don’t know is that their respective pasts are pushing majorly into the present. And that might not be what they’re ready for.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? In Australia, Troppo shares a network with In Limbo , a funny, poignant sitcom that recently made its way to the US via Hulu. But it’s the well-trodden path of murder show procedurals set in interesting places that Troppo is following, with other examples including Black Snow , also filmed in Australia, and Entrapped , with its Nordic noir – and biker – vibes.     

Our Take: We’ve all watched a million murder shows, and we’ll all watch a million more. What breaks Troppo out of its formulaic frame is the unpredictability of Ted and Amanda’s partnership. They’ve grown to enjoy working together, even if it remains at times argumentative, and their personalities mesh best when improvising on a hunt for clues or scrambling to help each other out of a jam. And maybe it’s because Troppo is based on a book series, but the writing always manages to take an additional turn, an extra line or two that lends individuality and watchability to the proceedings. Like he did with Hung and The Expanse , Jane proves adept at expressing the fullness of his character without a lot of grandstanding and loud noises. And Nicole Chamoun keeps the impulses that drive Amanda half-hidden, which drives our anticipation for how she’ll continue to manage – and maybe even overcome – her personal traumas.    

Filmed on location in Queensland, Australia, Troppo also gets a ton of enjoyable mileage out of the circumstances of its surroundings. Whether it’s the geese who wander through Ted’s place, the rough two-tracks that wind through stands of overgrown bunya-bunya trees, or the constant fact of weather that’s rainforest sticky, the environment is always a main character in this series. Sure, they’re solving murders. Lots of shows do it! But there is a distinct randomness to Troppo that allows us to see and learn new things along the way. 

Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode, anyway.

Parting Shot: Amanda and Ted are both expert snoopers, and separately, they each uncover another piece of the evolving puzzle that is their two-person agency’s latest murder case.   

Sleeper Star: We’re intrigued with the character of Tylah in Troppo , who seems to have a hidden agenda in addition to plenty of cash to pay Pharell-Konkaffey Investigations. And here’s a fast fact: Tylah is played by Miah Madden, whose half-sister Madeline Madden co-stars as Egwene on Prime Video’s fantasy series The Wheel of Time . 

Most Pilot-y Line: “Cops around here have a habit of screwing things up,” Amanda tells a few prospective new clients in town. “I’m a private investigator. If you’re worried about your father, I’d be happy to look into it.” 

Our Call: STREAM IT. Built around the chemistry between Nicole Chamoun and Thomas Jane as unlikely PI duo Amanda Pharrell and Ted Conkaffey, Troppo finds murders to solve in the most remote of places, with the scenery and wildlife and eccentric characters of Australia’s northern reaches always on offer.

Johnny Loftus ( @glennganges ) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.

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House of the Dragon Season 2, Episode 7 Recap: Squad Upgrade

Team Black has some new recruits.

Spoilers below.

First, Queen Rhaenyra meets Seasmoke’s new rider. It’s Addam of Hull, and the two encounter eachother on the beach, just them and their dragons. He promptly bends the knee to her, saying all he wants is to learn the art dragonriding and serve her as queen. When she asks him of his parentage, he doesn’t reveal his father (Corlys Velaryon). She invites him to Dragonstone.

In King’s Landing, Grand Maester Orwyle is treating Alicent Hightower’s wound from the attack by the protesting the townspeople in the last episode. She seems demoralized; she doesn’t see what influence she has on her children or her constituents. She goes to the Kingswood with just Ser Rickard of the Kingsguard and no one else.

Meanwhile, Lord Jasper Wylde has heard from his squire that Seasmoke has been spotted with a rider. He tells Larys Strong the news, but considering the source of the gossip, Larys thinks it might be best not to share the intel with Prince Aemond yet.

Rhaenyra shares the news about Addam with Mysaria but is unsure where she might find more potential riders. Mysaria says the answer might be under their noses: Royal Targaryens have frequented brothels in King’s Landing for years, and secretly had children out of wedlock. There are many more illegitimate Targaryens out there. “Let us raise an army of bastards,” Rhaenyra declares.

Corlys is also shocked by what Addam has done. He finds him in Dragonstone and gives him leave from his sailing duties so he can study dragonriding. But he doesn’t elaborate further or address their relationship, leaving him only with a “well done.”

In Harrenhall, the young Lord Oscar Tully returns, now as the Lord Paramount of the Riverland following his grandfather’s death. The boy clearly has big shoes to fill. He needs to get the Riverlords to trust him, but he must also deal with Daemon’s request for an army. Oscar decides he’ll uphold his grandfather’s oath to Viserys and support Queen Rhaenyra, but, to appease the Riverlords, he needs to address the atrocities inflicted upon House Bracken, which Willem Blackwood organized with Daemon’s support. He orders Daemon to behead Willem for his crimes so that justice is served. After, Daemon has another Viserys vision. He’s sitting on his bed in his decrepit state, holding the crown. “Do you want it still?” he asks Daemon.

How’s King Aegon Targaryen doing, you ask? He’s trying to walk now, but is in terrible pain. Larys is impressed by his progress, but says he still has to work harder to gain his strength back. The maester says Aegon needs rest, but Larys wants to push him.

Corlys does some dragonriding recruitment of his own. He tells Alyn that his brother, Addam, is Seasmoke’s new rider. Corlys doesn’t know the ancestry of the boys’ mother, but as for himself, his family hails from Old Valyria. If the prerequisite to dragonriding is in one’s blood, then maybe Alyn might be capable of it too. But Alyn refuses; he is “of salt and sea” and doesn’t desire anything more than sailing.

Another Velaryon relative might be in search of a dragon. In the Vale, Rhaena Targaryen and Rhaenyra’s sons leave for Pentos, but she sneaks off to look for the wild dragon Lady Arryn told her about. Considering Rhaena has dreamt of claiming a dragon since she was a child (which the show repeatedly reminds us), she might finally get her chance soon.

Though Rhaenyra’s “army of bastards” plan sounds promising, her son, Jaecerys isn’t pleased. He’s worried it might threaten the legitimacy of his claim as her heir. He knows he’s a bastard and that his biological father is Harwin Strong. Could any of these other dragonriding bastards claim the throne in the future? Especially the ones with actual Targaryen-silver hair?

Thanks to a game of telephone started by Mysaria, word lands in King’s Landing that Rhaenyra is inviting Targaryen bastards to come to Dragonstone to possibly claim a dragon. Ulf is peer pressured by his friends into going. Hugh Hammer also considers it after the death of his child, but his wife protests. Hugh didn’t know his father, but his mother, who worked in a pleasurehouse, was the sister of Baelon Targaryen, father of Viserys and Daemon.

While smallfolk are leaving King’s Landing, Alicent isn’t sure she’ll ever go back. Out in the Kingswood, she goes to swim in a lake alone. What is she doing out here?

Finally, about a few dozen hopefuls arrive to Dragonstone for Rhaenyra’s dragonriding auditions. (The High Valyrian-speaking dragonkeepers, however, don’t approve of this plan and leave.)

Rhaenyra takes her guests to see Vermithor, the largest dragon in the world after Vhagar, and it shows. When the beast emerges from the shadows he towers over Rhaenyra, even more than Seasmoke did, or any of the other dragons on her side so far. But things descend into chaos when the first hopeful steps up. Vermithor lights not only the volunteer on fire but also nearly all the other recruits, sending everyone running into the dragonpits. Vermithor only continues to chase after them, setting them on fire, stomping on them, eating them alive—it’s like Jurassic Park down there. Hugh finally confronts the dragon, ready to accept his fate, but the creature seems to like his bravery. Vermithor bows down to him, and Hugh pets him on the nose. Rhaenyra hates that she’s caused even more destruction, but at least she can claim this win.

Ulf, meanwhile, escaped and wandered deep within the dragons’ layer. As he stumbles around, he accidentally steps on a dragon egg, awakening another dragon: It’s likely Silverwing. Instead of roasting him alive, she chooses Ulf as her rider. Ulf is very new to this whole dragonriding thing though, and when he gets on his first ride, he ends up flying over King’s Landing, scaring the townspeople and interrupting a small council meeting. Aemond rushes to his own mount, Vhagar, to pursue Silverwing and her new rider to Dragonstone.

By this point, we know that if Aemond and Vhagar are chasing you, it’s not going to end well; but this time, Aemond shows a rare moment of restraint and orders Vhagar to turn around. There are (at least) three dragons with Rhaenyra on Dragonstone, and even Aemond knows that if he were to start a fight now, he might not win. That’s a first. With only one more episode left this season, perhaps Rhaenyra’s new army will finally be put to the test against the greens.

Erica Gonzales is the Senior Culture Editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage on TV, movies, music, books, and more. She was previously an editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com. There is a 75 percent chance she's listening to Lorde right now. 

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After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana journeys to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she has ever... Read all After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana journeys to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she has ever faced. After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana journeys to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she has ever faced.

• David G. Derrick Jr.
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• Trivia Originally began as a television series in 2020, with plans for the series to air on Disney+. In February 2024, the series was transformed into a theatrical sequel.

[from trailer]

Moana : Maui?

Maui : [picks up Hei Hei] Boat snack!

[Pua falls into his other hand]

Maui : Boat snack upgrade! Bacon *and* eggs?

[Pua snorts]

Maui : Why didn't you bring the pig last time?

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• November 27, 2024 (United States)
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Italian Boxer Quits Bout, Sparking Furor Over Gender at Olympics

The Italian, Angela Carini, stopped fighting only 46 seconds into her matchup against Imane Khelif of Algeria, who had been barred from a women’s event last year.

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By Tariq Panja and Jeré Longman

Reporting from Paris

An Italian boxer abandoned her bout at the Paris Olympics after only 46 seconds on Thursday, refusing to continue after taking a heavy punch from an Algerian opponent who had been disqualified from last year’s world championships over questions about her eligibility to compete in women’s sports.

The Italian boxer, Angela Carini, withdrew after her Algerian opponent, Imane Khelif, landed a powerful blow that struck Carini square in the face. Carini paused for a moment, then turned her back to Khelif and walked to her corner. Her coaches quickly signaled that she would not continue, and the referee stopped the fight.

Khelif, 25, was permitted to compete at the Olympics even though she had been barred last year after boxing officials said she did not meet eligibility requirements to compete in a women’s event. Another athlete also barred from last year’s world championships under similar circumstances, Lin Yu-ting, has also been cleared to fight in Paris.

The International Boxing Association, which ran those championships and ordered the disqualifications, offered little insight into the reasons for the boxers’ removal, saying in a statement that the disqualifications came after “the athletes did not undergo a testosterone examination but were subject to a separate and recognized test .”

The association said that test, the specifics of which it said were confidential, “conclusively indicated that both athletes did not meet the required necessary eligibility criteria and were found to have competitive advantages over other female competitors.”

Those rules, which the boxing association adopted for the 2016 Rio Games, are the same ones the International Olympic Committee is operating under as the authority running the boxing tournament at the Paris Games. But the rules, the I.O.C. confirmed, do not include language about testosterone or restrictions on gender eligibility beyond a single line saying “gender tests may be conducted.”

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