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Screenwriter Phyllis Nagy’s film on the pre-Roe underground abortion network features strong performances but never rises to a rousing battle cry“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” chants a group of student protesters – “yippies”, in the eyes of suspicious, coiffed lawyers – in the opening scene of Call Jane, screenwriter Phyllis Nagy’s meticulous, if not revelatory, film on an underground network of abortion providers in Chicago. It’s August 1968, five years before Roe v Wade, and the energy is combustible enough to ruffle even Joy (Elizabeth Banks, a fascinating mix of softness and steel), a suburban housewife pregnant with her second child.Joy, to use the parlance of a later decade, “has it all” – an attractive, successful husband in lawyer Will (Chris Messina), a picket-fence house, 15-year-old daughter Charlotte (Grace Edwards) – but she is still drawn to the buzz of revolution. In an arresting first scene, the camera follows behind Joy, polished and bejeweled, past the yippie clash with police to her husband’s car, where she muses over their mantra out loud. Continue reading...