It’s hard to build dramatic momentum out of scientists hunched over microscopes peering at petri dishes. Indeed, director Ben Taylor struggles to clear that hurdle in his conventional but watchable enough account of the development of what became known as in vitro fertilization. While it’s more compelling as human drama than science, the film benefits from timeliness, given right-wing efforts to curb women’s reproductive freedoms and recent moves by Senate Republicans to block a bill protecting the right to IVF. That factor, plus the very capable cast, should help Joy find an audience on Netflix, though anti-choice extremists won’t be among them.

If the production looks and sounds like a movie but plays more like dated television, the fault lies mainly with Jack Thorne’s by-the-numbers script. The writer takes Brit historical dramas like The Imitation Game as his model to map a breakthrough in 20th century medical science that gave hope to countless women unable to conceive a child. But the stodgy familiarity of the inspirational, based-on-a-true-story template gives Joy a halting rhythm that echoes the stop-start progress of the fertility treatment pioneers.

That team is formed when Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie), a nurse and future embryologist, is hired as a lab manager in the Department of Physiology at Cambridge, working under Robert Edwards (James Norton). After making initial headway with the study of human fertilization in the late ‘60s, they take their findings to obstetrician and gynecologist Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy), at that time considered something of a pariah by the British medical establishment for his championing of laparoscopy.

Patrick is crotchety and dismissive of their overtures at first, but Bob and Jean talk him around with their passionate belief in the project and intriguing early research. They agree to set up operations in a disused wing of Oldham General Hospital, a four-hour drive from Cambridge. Patrick warns them they will have the Church, the state and the whole world against them. “But we’ll have the mothers,” counters Bob.

As work on the project inches forward, the three dissimilar personalities — along with Muriel (Tanya Moodie), the brisk, no-nonsense senior nurse who insists on being addressed by her job title of Matron — gradually build a harmonious professional relationship.

But the focus tightens on Jean as the central figure. A churchgoing Christian cut off by her loving mother Gladys (Joanna Scanlan) when she refuses to abandon the controversial work, Jean is revealed to have a personal investment in women’s fertility issues. This becomes especially relevant for her when her unintended romance with Cambridge lab colleague Arun (Rish Shah) gets serious and he proposes, making it clear he’s eager to start a family.

One of the more enjoyable parts of the movie is Jean’s rapport with the disparate group of women signing up for the experiment, who forge a sense of community during their hospital visits. Jean’s manner of dealing with them as she administers regular hormone injections is detached and clinical at first — much like her earlier consent to have sex with Arun, on the condition that he form no attachment.

When a member of the Ovum Club, as they’ve dubbed themselves, points out that Jean could stand to work on her people skills, she immediately softens, learning to put the women at ease. It’s through those interactions that Thorne’s screenplay shows deep compassion for the many childless women yearning for a baby, grounding the drama in basic human need as much as science. There’s poignancy also in the participants’ knowledge that most of them will not get pregnant, but that they are laying the groundwork for future mothers who will.

A heated scene in which the Medical Research Council declines to provide development funding, arguing that the research will benefit only a small handful of the population, underscores Jean, Bob and Patrick’s frustration as they try to make people grasp the concept of infertility as a treatable condition.

The one-step-forward, two-steps-back pattern of positive results followed by disappointment becomes a bit static. But after Jean learns that her still estranged mother is dying, she breaks with the group, dismissing their efforts as a failure and parting on bitter terms with Bob. That allows for the inevitable resumption of work when stinging loss galvanizes Jean back into action.

The final stretch leading up to the first successful “test-tube birth” in 1978, acquires welcome notes of suspense and emotional power — the latter amplified by text at the end of the film revealing that 12 million babies have been born thanks to IVF in the decades since. We also learn that Edwards, the last surviving member of the team, was awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in 2010.

Thorne frames the story with Bob’s letter, heard in voiceover, lobbying for the inclusion of Jean’s name on a plaque at the hospital honoring the IVF pioneers. What the script doesn’t address, somewhat mystifyingly, is the decades during which Purdy’s vital contribution went unacknowledged, no doubt due to her gender and the reductive view of her role as that of a mere lab technician.

The screenplay also fails to make much of the public hostility directed at the research team. The handful of press and protestors outside the hospital shouting “Dr. Frankenstein,” a bit of graffiti and one instance in which Jean is shown receiving a hate-mail package don’t exactly solidify the idea of a wall of opposition. A TV appearance in which Bob is shouted down by an angry studio audience is more effective.

Taylor, a seasoned TV director best known for the streaming series Catastrophe and Sex Education, does a competent job with his sharp-looking first feature, even if the narrative flow is erratic. The movie leans heavily on Steven Price’s score for dramatic weight and on a very random selection of ‘60s and ‘70s needle drops for energy. Only Nina Simone’s gorgeous cover of “Here Comes the Sun” over the opening credits makes thematic sense in terms of the story’s ultimate outcome.

Fortunately, the actors lift the material. McKenzie creates an appealing contrast between Jean’s mousy voice and her grit and forthrightness, shaded with an understated vein of melancholy. Nighy brings his usual economy of means to a veteran medical professional whose formality gives way to reveal his warm, caring nature; Patrick’s approaching retirement age incentivizes him to make a difference. Norton, nerded out with glasses and Michael Caine’s old hair, has the charm and sincerity necessary to put across Thorne’s frequently hackneyed declarations — “We’re making the impossible possible,” “Everything changes from here.”

Scanlan as Jean’s mum and Moodie as Matron both make strong impressions, though even those smaller roles are not entirely spared moments of speechifying. For instance, when Jean is distressed to learn that Patrick has been performing abortions at the hospital — which were legal by that time but still strongly opposed by the Church — Matron thunders back: “We are here to give women a choice. Every choice.”

Joy may not represent the height of sophisticated storytelling, but it has the advantage of an interesting story rescued from historical obscurity. It will touch the hearts of many parents whose lives have been changed — and in the case of their children, made possible — by those ten long years of dedication that led to the IVF breakthrough.

Rumours, 2024.

Written and Directed by Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin.
Starring Cate Blanchett, Roy Dupuis, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Charles Dance, Takehiro Hira, Denis Ménochet, Rolando Ravello, Zlatko Burić, and Alicia Vikander.

SYNOPSIS:

The leaders of seven wealthy democracies get lost in the woods while drafting a statement on a global crisis, facing danger as they attempt to find their way out.

Even those not well-versed in film or basic symbolism will get the point Rumours is making and be exhausted long before it’s over. That’s annoying enough, especially since the targets, world leaders getting together for a G7 meeting to collaborate on a statement regarding an unspecified global crisis, are already low-hanging fruit. Then writers/directors Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and Guy Maddin go a step further, bordering on insulting the viewers, having these world leaders waxing philosophical about how they are less than human and more stand-ins for various beliefs across the political spectrum, much like we aren’t getting to know characters but more so stand-ins for whatever punchline the script wants to make about each country’s leader.

The numerous jokes quickly run their course. However, making matters worse is that these global leaders don’t actually do much, and not much happens in the film, which is the grand joke here. These influential individuals come together and either vent about their romantic relationships, get sexually involved with each other, rant about things they can’t do anymore, bicker, or generally get caught up in their self-absorbed lives. Roughly halfway in, they are interrupted by reanimated masturbating corpses from thousands of years ago, which is naturally intended to be more funny than frightening but also gets old fast, considering there is no real threat being posed. It’s wacky, irreverent, and inspired, but the point of everything is made so bluntly that the film becomes a frustrating, sluggish watch.

The impressive ensemble, which consists of Cate Blanchett as Germany’s Hilda Orlmann, Charles Dance’s US President Edison Wolcott, France’s Sylvain Broulez (Denis Ménochet), British Prime Minister Cardosa Dewindt (Nikki Amuka-Bird), and others admittedly find some humor in the material and bounce dialogue off of each other well enough, but that also doesn’t salvage a film that goes on forever making a rather obvious point about the effectiveness, honesty, and morals of such world leaders.

Denis Ménochet probably shines the most here, possibly because he gets to work with the strangest material; he first encounters one of the zombies, then is unable to walk due to an inexplicable “leg injury,” and then finds himself locked into a hypnotized writing groove while being pushed around a dark forest in a wheelbarrow. Takehiro Hira’s Japanese leader, Tatsuro Iwasaki, also has amusing exchanges with everyone he interacts with, mostly from some of the uneducated, stupid questions he finds himself answering (there’s a funny one about Japanese fans.) 

Speaking of that forest, there are cheesy fog machines and moody lighting, also playing into the idea that this isn’t meant to be scary and that these global leaders are just terrified cowards incapable of dealing with any major crisis.  There is certainly nothing wrong with the film’s aesthetics or visuals, including a giant brain in the middle of the forest that Alica Vikander’s European leader, Celestine Sproul, has a mysterious connection to, conversing using an unknown language. The unabashed weirdness is welcome, but again, it doesn’t necessarily offset how broad and stale the jokes are at the expense of each country’s leader and the more prominent point being made about their uselessness. Rumours is taking the cheap, easy route for what could have been a terrific and scathing timely satire.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist

“Life on Earth: Art & Ecofeminism” is a somewhat difficult exhibition to grab hold of, but that’s mostly because its important subject is so much larger than a diverse but relatively modest presentation can encompass.

Ecofeminism rejects the idea of human dominance over nature. The inaugural show at the Brick, an independent art space formerly known as LAXArt and recently relocated to Western Avenue, features 18 works by international artists and collectives that touch several intriguing bases of ecofeminist art launched since the 1970s.

Insistence on the supremacy of people over the natural world is cited as the primary source of environmental destruction. Furthermore, the practice is tightly bound to the seemingly intransigent social marginalization of women. Remember Mother Nature? If we insist on regarding the natural world in such feminine terms, then authority over women is an essential — and equally destructive — corollary to authority over nature.

The show’s earliest piece might be an analogy for the whole. In 1972, when Aviva Rahmani was a student at the California Institute of the Arts, she directed and documented in slides a performance titled “Physical Education.” Filling a plastic bag with tap water, she and a performer drove 50-plus miles from the suburban school in parched Santa Clarita to the Pacific Ocean, stopping four times along the way to deposit teaspoons of water on the side of the road, then replacing each with a spoonful of dirt.

When Rahmani got to the beach, the muddy bag was emptied out in the sand and refilled with sea water. She promptly drove it back to CalArts, reversing the process. Upon arrival, she flushed the dirty water down a toilet.

In the exhibition, a cycle of elemental return and fundamental waste unfolds in slides projected from an automated tray onto an ordinary freestanding screen. The setup, common for pre-digital Conceptual art, is much like the way folks used to show the neighbors happy pictures of their summer vacation. Here, water transport assumes a form that is grandly ritualistic if decidedly prosaic.

None of the individual photographic images in “Physical Education” is especially distinctive. The artful feature of the work is instead embedded in the installation’s composition.

Rahmani’s pictures don’t come close to filling the screen, although they could easily have been projected that way like snaps from the family trip to Disneyland or Yosemite. Rather, they nestle down in a corner, modestly flashing by, one after the next, as the slide tray clicks in nonstop rotation. The mostly empty screen’s larger blankness implies that there’s plenty of room for many more pictures awaiting exposure. This work of ecologically minded art is positioned as just one self-aware fragment of a much bigger worldview that needs to be seen as holistic and systemic.

Nearby, a pair of large, documentary performance photographs made five decades later by L.A.-based yétúndé olagbaju resonates against Rahmani’s historical piece. At left in “protolith: heat, pressure,” the artist is seen from behind, dressed in a white robe and headscarf. They emerge from within a rocky outcropping in an otherwise grassy field and hold up their hands, as if in benediction. On the right, the composition is roughly the same, although now their hands press against the massive stone.

Off in the distance, a fence is glimpsed, suggesting a cultivated landscape rather than a wild one, while a lone telephone pole identifies the rural location as tethered to community via modern communication. The photographs smartly picture the classic irresistible force paradox. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Can an artist alter a deeply established cultural relationship to the natural world?

Come to think of it, in these photographs, which is the force, and which is the object — the person or the rock? Or are they interchangeable?

L.A.-based artist yétúndé olagbaju performed a ritual laying on of hands on a rural stone outcropping.

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

Advertisement

It takes a moment, but olagbaju’s gesture of first blessing, then touching a seemingly immovable boulder shifts your perspective, and that might be enough to generate at least incremental change. Like the steady drip-drip-drip of water on stone, which over millenniums reduces a monolith to sand, human contact will have its way.

The exhibition is not a comprehensive history of ecofeminist art. Pioneers of the genre such as Agnes Denes, who once transformed a Manhattan landfill into a wondrous urban wheat field, and Helène Aylon, who commemorated the end of the Cold War with anti-nuclear performance art, are absent. The Brick presentation is instead a provocative sketch suggesting that a museum would do well to undertake a full historical overview of ecofeminist art from the last half a century.

It’s also disappointing that no catalog accompanies the show; one is said to be in the works, but publication is not expected until next year, presumably so that new commissions, installations and mixed-media works can be documented and included. Art spaces used to deal with such complications by publishing a two-volume set — a primary one to accompany the exhibition as it opens and a small supplement to record additions. But that traditional practice seems to have fallen by the wayside.

It’s a loss. Yes, the two-tome process is more expensive to produce. Yet, for the benefit of the art audience, it should simply be regarded as necessary.

Still, smartly organized by Brick curator Catherine Taft, with curatorial assistants Hannah Burstein and Kameron McDowell, “Life on Earth” manages to cover a good deal of territory. In this contribution to the Getty-sponsored festival “PST Art: Art & Science Collide,” the breadth, both aesthetic and geographic, is wide.

A graceful mermaid swimming around in an industrial-strength water treatment plant in Lithuanian artist Emilija Škarnulytė’s film “Riparia” becomes a perilous siren, luring the unsuspecting to the rocks. Leslie Labowitz Starus, who has operated an urban farm in Venice for decades, puts sprouts on poetic display. Carolina Caycedo carves a trio of enormous seeds — squash, beans, corn — from wood as elegant sculptural abstractions. Projected videos of rushing rivers and roiling seas mix effortlessly with disparate photographs of human gender fluidity, which marks the people in A.L. Steiner’s exuberant collage environment papering gallery walls.

Fluidity describes gender and nature in A.L. Steiner’s installation of photographs and video.

(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)

Steiner’s installation helps unravel perhaps the oldest, most powerful source of the problematic fusion of nature and womanhood in ordinary cultural conceptions. The Book of Genesis doubled down not long after tagging biblical Eve as the agent of the fall from grace in the Garden of Eden. “Be fruitful and multiply,” the command then came, “and replenish the Earth, and subdue it.”

And subdue it. Subjugate women, subjugate nature. Think about that awful binary as the climate continues to change, while stormwater rises and fires burn.