Call Jane

The 1960s are often sold to us in shades of neon and protest, but Call Jane starts in the beige, carpeted silence of a life that looks perfect from the sidewalk. It’s 1968 in Chicago, and Joy (Elizabeth Banks) is the quintessential suburban housewife—fretting over the hors d'oeuvres for her husband’s promotion party and keeping her hair perfectly coiffed. But when a life-threatening pregnancy turns her doctor-approved world into a death trap, the film shifts from a domestic drama into something closer to a quiet, subversive heist movie.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while nursing a lukewarm cup of peppermint tea that I’d forgotten to steep, which felt strangely appropriate for a movie about women just getting things done with whatever tools they have at hand. It’s a film that arrived at a very specific, volatile moment in American history—released in late 2022, just months after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Because of that, it doesn't just feel like a period piece; it feels like a dispatch from a possible future.

The Procedural of the Personal

What struck me most about director Phyllis Nagy’s approach is how remarkably unsentimental it is. Nagy, who previously penned the exquisite screenplay for Carol (2015), avoids the trap of making this a "misery porn" experience. Instead, she treats the act of seeking an abortion like a gritty, logistical puzzle. When Joy discovers "The Janes"—an underground collective of women providing safe, illegal procedures—she doesn't find a group of weeping martyrs. She finds a bunch of over-worked, sharp-tongued women in a crowded living room who are running a medical clinic like a high-stakes catering business.

Elizabeth Banks is a revelation here. We’re used to her being the high-energy spark plug in things like Pitch Perfect or The Hunger Games, but here she plays a woman awakening to the reality that the institutions she trusted (the law, the church, the medical board) don't actually care if she lives or dies. Her transformation from a woman who asks for permission to a woman who stops asking is the engine of the film. By the time she’s learning how to perform the procedures herself, the film develops a fascinating, clinical rhythm.

A Masterclass in Supporting Steel

While the film belongs to Joy, Sigourney Weaver nearly walks away with it as Virginia, the chain-smoking, no-nonsense leader of the Janes. Weaver brings that same "get it done" energy she used to fight Xenomorphs in Aliens, only here she’s fighting the patriarchy with a rotary phone and a stack of index cards. The chemistry between Banks and Weaver is delightful; it’s a mentorship built on necessity rather than warm fuzzies.

The supporting cast is equally sturdy. Wunmi Mosaku (who was brilliant in Loki) brings a much-needed perspective on how the Janes' services—which cost $600—are out of reach for the women who need them most. Chris Messina plays the "good guy" husband who is slowly realizing he doesn't actually know the woman sleeping next to him. Messina has built a career on playing the slightly rumpled, relatable everyman (see: Air or The Mindy Project), and he’s perfectly cast here as the guy who isn't the villain, but is definitely part of the problem.

The Look of the Collective

Visually, Call Jane opts for a grainy, tactile aesthetic. It was shot on 16mm film by cinematographer Greta Zozula, which gives it an authentic, lived-in texture that digital cameras often fail to capture. It doesn't look like a shiny Hollywood recreation of the 60s; it looks like a home movie you found in an attic that happened to capture a revolution.

The film did run into a bit of a "bad timing" scenario at the festivals. It premiered at Sundance the same year as the documentary The Janes, which covered the same real-life history. For some critics, the fictionalized version felt lighter than the raw reality of the documentary. However, I’d argue that Call Jane serves a different purpose. It’s an accessible, almost breezy entry point into a heavy subject. It’s a movie that values efficiency over hand-wringing, which is exactly how the Janes operated.

Turns out, the production was a bit of a collective effort itself. To keep things authentic, the film used many of the same medical tools that were actually used by the underground group in the late 60s. They also had to navigate the complexities of filming a period piece during the height of the pandemic, which probably contributed to that sense of isolation Joy feels in the early scenes.

Call Jane isn't interested in being an "Oscar-bait" tearjerker. It’s a grounded, surprisingly funny, and deeply pragmatic look at what happens when the law fails and women decide to take care of each other. While it occasionally glides over the darker edges of its subject matter, the central performances from Banks and Weaver make it a compelling watch for anyone interested in how "the good old days" weren't always that good. It’s a contemporary film that uses the past to ask some very uncomfortable questions about our present.