Arriving with unfortunately renewed significance since its Sundance Film Festival premiere earlier this, Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane dramatizes the story of The Jane Collective in the latest 60s of Chicago. Following Elizabeth Banks’ character as a suburban housewife whose pregnancy leads to a life-threatening heart condition, she must navigate an all-male medical establishment unwilling to terminate her pregnancy in order to save her life. This leads her to connect with Sigourney Weaver’s character, who leads an underground collective providing access to illegal abortions. Ahead of an October release, the first trailer has now arrived.
Jake Kring-Schreifels said in his review, “Call Jane is a competently made, well-acted historical drama that doesn’t give its charged subject matter the stakes or urgency it needs. Loosely based on The Jane Collective, an underground organization that provided illegal abortions for women in need of its services, Phyllis Nagy’s feature-length directorial debut offers a timely, nuanced, mostly sunny look at the five years preceding the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade ruling. That it chooses to hitch its perspective to a conservative blonde suburban housewife is both a helpful storytelling device and kind of a bummer.”
See the trailer below.
Call Jane opens on October 28 in theaters.