Film Review: CALL JANE: Elizabeth Banks Stars in a Heavy Abortion Drama That Feels Lighter Than It Should [Sundance 2022]

Call Jane Review

Call Jane (2022) Film Review from the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Phyllis Nagy and starring Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, Evangeline Young, Kristina Harrison, Rebecca Henderson, Aida Turturro, Alison Jaye, Bianca D’Ambrosio, Geoffrey Cantor, Brett Bartholomew, John Rothman, Bruce MacVittie and Beau Baxter.

At what point does a serious movie become too light for its own good? In a good drama, it never does. In Call Jane, a meandering film with a stellar cast, the material calls for a greater sense of heightened dramatics. It feels all too ordinary considering the gravity of what is happening to the female characters on screen. Abortion becomes all too routine in the way it is presented and, as a result, the movie loses the dramatic edge it possesses for the film’s first half hour. Elizabeth Banks stars in what could be her most juicy lead role to date. Directed by the writer of Carol, Phyllis Nagy, Call Jane opens strongly but ends with a sense that the story needed more of an edge towards the end. As a result, it is unlikely to attract a large audience although it will have appeal to a select crowd who would probably rather stream it than go see it in a theater.

Set in Chicago in the late 1960’s when abortion was illegal in America, Banks portrays Joy, a housewife who is having health issues. Joy is pregnant but because of her heart problems, she cannot give birth to the baby without a chance of Joy dying. She tries to throw herself down a set of stairs to lose the baby to no avail. What’s a woman to do in that time period under these circumstances? She goes to an illegal abortion practice but is left feeling nervous, frightened and alone. When she sees a flyer hanging up that offers her help, she calls. The sign reads: “Call Jane.” This film proceeds to detail the specifics of the “Jane Collective” which was a group of women determined to look out for other women by providing them with a safe and inexpensive way to have an abortion.

Joy has an abortion and is then asked by the prominent lady of the “Jane Collective,” Virginia (the always reliable Sigourney Weaver), to do her a favor and transport a young woman to the location where the abortion procedures are done. An audience member may wish he or she could tell Joy not to do it at first, but it turns out, Joy will find just what she needs to escape her mundane life by taking on this task. You see, Joy is married to a lawyer named Will (Chris Messina) and he isn’t truly understanding to the sensitive needs Joy has. He’s more concerned with his big promotion at work. The “Jane Collective” is just what she needs to feel a sense of purpose and meaning in her life.

The supporting cast outside of the central group the film revolves around includes Kate Mara as a widowed housewife named Lana and Grace Edwards as Charlotte, Joy’s teenage daughter who ends up following her mother to see what’s going on at one point when Joy’s excuse that she’s busy taking art classes seems too odd to be believable especially when she isn’t bringing any artwork home with her. Mara and Edwards are OK in rather standard roles. It is Wunmi Mosaku who stands out the most in the cast as the black member of the Jane Collective named Gwen who argues that poor women should have the same economic freedom to pay for an abortion as more privileged white women. Joy cuts a deal with the doctor (Cory Michael Smith) to up the number of abortions at a financially agreeable rate. Joy even becomes his assistant!

This film presents a very interesting premise about a group of women who take other women to secret locations (they are occasionally blindfolded) so they can get the abortion procedures done that will, in turn, provide the ladies with the freedom they need to live their own lives again. The importance of this story is undeniable. Banks is especially strong in the early scenes as she is scared about getting the procedure and the irony in the story is, ultimately, that it all becomes a routine to her as she helps other women who were going through what she was going through at the beginning of the film. This movie even throws in a nun named Sister Mike (Aida Turturro) who helps out with answering the phones for the organization.

There are some touching moments between Joy and her husband as well as scenes between Joy and her daughter that ring true and come across realistically on screen. However, the film is not as strongly shaped, dramatically speaking, as it could have and should have been. Weaver and Banks are playing strong female characters here and the audience wants to see them as more than just supporters of women’s rights. We want to see their darker sides, their angrier sides, if you will, and I don’t think the film conveys those aspects as strongly as it could have. Instead, we have a movie that ends so lightly (and rather abruptly) that it even plays a song with the lyrics, “Let the Sunshine In” during the end credits. While women’s rights are certainly something to help let the sunshine in, the experiences these women go through during the course of the film deserved a more dramatic edge than the picture ultimately leaves us with. Call Jane has an urgent story that is given a disappointing execution. Banks has never been better, though.

Rating: 6.5/10

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