Call Jane is Timely in a Divided Time

Release Date：Oct/28/2022

Genre：Drama/History

Director：Phyllis Nagy

Cast：Elizabeth Banks、Sigourney Weaver、Chris Messina、Kate Mara、Wunmi Mosaku

Viola's Rating：7.3

Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that conferred women the right to choose to have an abortion in 1973. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization in 2022 overruled Roe v. Wade. The U.S. is now a nation that is vey divided, and the Oscar nominated director Phyllis Nagy’s latest feature film, Call Jane, is in favor of the pro-choice campaigners and timely in such time.

Before 1973, an underground service in Chicago called Jane operated between 1969 to 1973, helping women to have safe abortion, which was illegal at the time. Based on the real story of Jane Collective and the women’s liberation movement related to it, the storyline of Call Jane depicts a married woman with an unwanted pregnancy, Joy, living in a time in America where she can't get a legal abortion and working with a group of suburban women to find help.

Call Jane is R-rated for some brief drug use and some language, and abortion is no doubt one of the main themes of the film. However, there isn’t any gruesome surgery operation or scene in the flick although there are detailed explanations of the procedure of an abortion. Women turn to abortion for many different reasons, mostly because they want to postpone childbearing, but there are also people who want to have an abortion for not being able to afford a baby, having relationship problem, partner not wanting a pregnancy, etc. Extreme situations such as incest, rape or risks to maternal health are also mentioned in Call Jane.

Gender issues are always controversial as well as racial issues. Call Jane clearly demonstrates that in the end of the day, it must be females who help other females to achieve what they could have achieved.

Aside from abortion, other feminism topics are also brought up in Call Jane. For example, Joy’s husband is a lawyer, and the doctor in Jane is a man. Back in 1960s, the concept of a career doesn’t exist in a woman’s life. While males are learning academics at school, females are learning how to do choirs well at school. Other issues such as equal pay for equal work and women’s suffrage are also included in the motion picture.

Economic status, race and sex education all could be the reasons why some women keep getting themselves unwanted pregnancy, but even with people who are careful still sometimes encounter situations that they need abortion. Call Jane leads its audience into the core of this underground service all the way to the day it ended, not only because it was raided, but also because there’s no such need any more. The need for abortion won’t decrease because it’s illegal, but only put women in danger because people seek for unsafe methods. 

Picture Credit: IMDb