ASK FOR JANE – Review by Jennifer Merin

May 21, 2019June 1, 2019 Jennifer Merin 0 Comments ask for jane, Cait Cortelyou, cody horn, jane collective, motw, Movie of the Week, rachel carey

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Rachel Carey’s Ask For Jane is a narrative drama that could not be more timely. The truth-based story centers on the Jane Collective, an underground group of Chicago co-eds who helped their peers and other women to terminate unwanted pregnancies during the late 1960 and early 70s, at a time when the law defined abortion as murder. Believing in a woman’s right to choose, the Janes put their own lives on the line, risking serious jail time, in their commitment to the cause, to guiding women through a most difficult decision and to providing them with safe and reliable medical care.

With the recent enactment of anti-abortion legislation in Alabama, Georgia and Missouri and the likelihood that more states will follow, women’s right to choose and access to safe abortions is so seriously threatened we may all have to become Janes in the near future. Continue reading on CINEMA CITIZEN.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ask For Jane is AWFJ’s Movie of the Week for May 31, 2019

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Jennifer Merin

Jennifer Merin is the Film Critic for Womens eNews and contributes the CINEMA CITIZEN blog for and is managing editor for Women on Film, the online magazine of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, of which she is President. She has served as a regular critic and film-related interviewer for The New York Press and About.com. She has written about entertainment for USA Today, The L.A. Times, US Magazine, Ms. Magazine, Endless Vacation Magazine, Daily News, New York Post, SoHo News and other publications. After receiving her MFA from Tisch School of the Arts (Grad Acting), Jennifer performed at the O'Neill Theater Center's Playwrights Conference, Long Wharf Theater, American Place Theatre and LaMamma, where she worked with renown Japanese director, Shuji Terayama. She subsequently joined Terayama's theater company in Tokyo, where she also acted in films. Her journalism career began when she was asked to write about Terayama for The Drama Review. She became a regular contributor to the Christian Science Monitor after writing an article about Marketta Kimbrell's Theater For The Forgotten, with which she was performing at the time. She was an O'Neill Theater Center National Critics' Institute Fellow, and then became the institute's Coordinator. While teaching at the Universities of Wisconsin and Rhode Island, she wrote "A Directory of Festivals of Theater, Dance and Folklore Around the World," published by the International Theater Institute. Denmark's Odin Teatret's director, Eugenio Barba, wrote his manifesto in the form of a letter to "Dear Jennifer Merin," which has been published around the world, in languages as diverse as Farsi and Romanian. Jennifer's culturally-oriented travel column began in the LA Times in 1984, then moved to The Associated Press, LA Times Syndicate, Tribune Media, Creators Syndicate and (currently) Arcamax Publishing. She's been news writer/editor for ABC Radio Networks, on-air reporter for NBC, CBS Radio and, currently, for Westwood One's America In the Morning. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association in the Film, Documentary and TV branches and a voting member of the Black Reel Awards. For her AWFJ archive, type "Jennifer Merin" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).