Female Film Critics 24/375
Alice, Darling is a frank examination of the common but hard to tackle phenomenon of abuse, In Mary Nighy’s debut feature. Anna Kendrick brilliantly portrays a woman who is being drowned by her boyfriend’s coercive control. The film may be imperfect in places, but it is important and gives voice to a group of near silent victims and places emphasis on how essential it is for those who suffer to have a support network.
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Anna Kendrick’s mesmerizing performance as the victim of emotional abuse in Alice, Darling is the stuff of Oscars. In a role unlike any she’s portrayed before, she brings an unexpected fragility to the title character – a young woman terrified of her artist boyfriend. Movies about abuse are often violent and loud but Alice, Darling is quietly horrifying as Alice’s terror is revealed through her compulsions. It is impossible not to feel her fear and pain as she obsessively counts calories and literally pulls out her hair, winding it tightly around her fingers.
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In Chicago in 1968, housewife Joy Griffin watches the Democratic National Convention on television. She sees police officers, their heads capped in “blue brain buckets,” beat protesters against the Vietnam War. The noisy news establishes the political climate in 1968, but whispers surround the issue of abortion in the pre-Roe era of Call Jane, a well realized look at reproductive history.
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Based on the true story of the Jane Collective, a group of young feminist activists who facilitated underground abortions in the Chicago area in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Phyllis Nagy’s heartfelt Call Jane illustrates, clearly and empathetically, why access to safe, affordable abortions is an essential aspect of female healthcare. The movie may take place 50-plus years ago, but in a world where the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the issue has never felt more timely.
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Call Jane is inspired by the work of the underground activist group Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberationl. From 1968 to 1973, the group helped thousands of women to get pre-Roe V Wade abortions. Directed by Phillis Nagy, the film stars Elizabeth Banks as suburban housewife who becomes involved helping members of the organization, aka The Janes, after they helped her to end a life-threatening pregnancy.
Several documentaries and narratives have told the story of these women or used the organizaation as a backdrop, but Call Jane has the highest profile yet, featuring A-list talent that includes Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, and Wunmi Mosaku.
Call Jane tells the story of sisterhood among a group of women aptly called “The Janes.” They provided abortions at a time when an all-male Supreme Court forbade women from getting them legally. The film is set in the late 1960s, but the story couldn’t be more timely today with the Supreme Court considering rolling back what Roe v. Wade accomplished.
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Sweetness in the Belly is a sidewinder. You think it’s a tragic love story set during the post-Haile Selassie revolutionary coup. But this is a tale of female resilience–despite all odds and patriarchal restraints in mid-1970s Ethiopia.
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