The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

Berlin Film Festival 2022

Call Jane

Berlin Film Festival 2022: Call Jane | Review
13 February 2022
Selina Sondermann
Avatar
Selina Sondermann
13 February 2022

Movie and show review

Selina Sondermann

Call Jane

★★★★★

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2022

10th to 16th February 2022

In 1968, Joy is pregnant with her second child, when she experiences dizzy spells and fainting. She is diagnosed with a heart condition that could prove fatal if she carries the baby to term. Together with her doctor and her husband, an ascending lawyer, the housewife appeals to the responsible medical board to grant an exceptional abortion. The request is denied, and as she tries to find alternative solutions, further obstacles block her way. When she finds a collective, whose goal it is to help women in situations like hers, she decides to join them.

Based on the real Jane Collective that operated in Chicago between 1969 and 1973, Call Jane makes a piece of the American feminist movement accessible and digestible to modern audiences. Phyllis Nagy (best known for writing the screenplay for Carol) directs her second feature with the life-altering energy typically found in road movies, even though travel in this drama comes down to car trips within city limits. With a predominantly female cast and crew, the very pertinent subject matter is handled respectfully, but the standard the film sets for itself – providing insight into the personal stories of multiple women, who have either worked for or been helped by the foundation – is not entirely realisable in a runtime of two hours. The drama wastes precious minutes on an inconsequential side plot involving Joy’s husband and her neighbour.

Elizabeth Banks expertly leads the impressive cast by playing Joy as an unpredictable homemaker. Her immaculately coiffed hair and elegant attire make it easy to underestimate her strength of character. Even the founder of the underground service, Virginia (played by Sigourney Weaver) mistakes her for someone who “bakes average Snickerdoodles” at first.

Shot on film, the grain in the images not only adds the perfect ingredient to the retro layout, but the picture’s close-ups are rewarded with striking textures of skin. The scenes of the procedures, in which the hustle surrounding legal complications and so on is slowed down to the here and now, are the production’s most potent moments. Seeing the reality of how no woman takes this incredibly personal decision lightly appeals to the audience’s empathy, and will hopefully carry over into their own lives.  

★★★★★

Selina Sondermann

Call Jane does not have a UK release date yet.

Read more reviews from our Berlin Film Festival 2022 coverage here.

For further information about the event visit the Berlin Film Festival website here.

Related Itemsberlin film festivalberlinalefilm festivalreview

More in Berlinale

A Little Love Package

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

Sonne

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Gangubai Kathiawadi

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

“I was always trying to find this equilibrium between improvising and following the script”: Carla Simón on Golden Bear-winning Alcarràs

Sarah Bradbury
Read More

A E I O U – A Quick Alphabet of Love: An interview with Nicolette Krebitz

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Berlinale 2022: Awards predictions and highlights from the festival

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Concerned Citizen

★★★★★
Oliver Johnston
Read More

So-seol-ga-ui yeong-hwa (The Novelist’s Film)

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Rimini: An interview with director Ulrich Seidl

Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Selina Sondermann

Call Jane

★★★★★

Special event

Berlin Film Festival 2022

10th to 16th February 2022

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Albert Adrià reopens Enigma on 7 June as a “fun-dining” restaurant and cocktail bar
    Food & Drinks
  • Crimes of the Future: Three new clips from David Cronenberg’s dystopian body horror film
    Cannes
  • The Road Dance
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Innocents
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Paolo Nutini at the 100 Club
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Father and the Assassin at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Amazons launch How Will I Know If Heaven Will Find Me? at Live Nation
    Live music
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Corsage
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • One Fine Morning (Un Beau Matin)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Dirty Dancing the Movie in concert at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Feminine Power: The Divine to the Demonic at the British Museum
    ★★★★★
    Art
  • Eo (Hi-Han)
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
  • Warpaint at the Roundhouse
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Armageddon Time
    ★★★★★
    Cannes
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Berlin Film Festival 2022: Keiko, Me wo Sumasete (Small, Slow but Steady) | Review
Berlin Film Festival 2022: Drii Winter (A Piece of Sky) | Review