This year’s Sundance Film Festival not only saw a large number of horror films, but even its feel-good dramas and standard action thrillers came laced with urgent commentaries that are both social and economic.
Call Jane may play like a traditionally-structured feel-good drama, but its subject matter of the Jane Collective feels only more relevant now, with the country seeing a recent setback on abortion laws and women’s rights. As for Emily the Criminal, it’s about time we had a criminal underground thriller that revolves around the relatable, overwhelming issue of student debt in America.
Call Jane (Phyllis Nagy)
Being one of three films about abortion shown at this year’s Sundance, Call Jane is probably the most procedural one. It’s a feel-good, entertaining piece of drama that simplifies a crucial turning point in American history for easier accessibility. It must be stressed that that description is not an inherently bad thing. It does, however, fall into the realm of dramas that are predictably good.
A lot of what holds Call Jane back from true greatness is Phyllis Nagy’s direction. Though she is an incredible storyteller on the paper, she lacks the energy and style behind the camera, resulting in a film that overall feels too mellow and by-the-numbers for its subject matter. It makes for an Act 1 that certainly takes a while to get going.
Elizabeth Banks plays the lead character Joy, a housewife living in the 1960s suburban neighborhood who one day learns that her pregnancy is leading her to congestive heart failure. In a devastating scene involving a room full of men discussing her potential death, all while she’s physically in the room, Joy ends up calling a number that would lead her to Jane, a person who can help her get an illegal abortion.
After a tense hold-your-breath sequence, Joy’s procedure is a success and she eventually learns that Jane is not a person, but a collective of women who secretly carry out abortions for women in need. The leader of this collective is Virginia, played so brilliantly by Sigourney Weaver. Once Virginia enters the picture and Joy becomes more empowered to contribute to the Jane Collective, Call Jane finally picks up the pace and shines in its moments of character, dialogue, and comradery. With Joy starting as the “patient” to bringing in the women who need help to eventually performing the abortions herself, the script succeeds in getting us to root for her and all women who have the compassion to help others. As Virginia says at one point in the film: they don’t judge why or how the women got pregnant. They are simply there to help.
One can understandably criticize Call Jane for being too easy going and not accurate in capturing the true risk and danger these women were facing in the 60s, but that is why we need not one but several films about abortion. With this year’s Sundance having the French film Happening and the documentary The Janes (also about the Jane Collective), a feel-good casual drama like Call Jane still has its place and role to play. With good performances, memorable lines, and great care towards its characters, Call Jane is a drama that tackles its heavy subject matter with sheer optimism and the best of intentions.
Call Jane premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2022.
Emily the Criminal (John Patton Ford)
There are few things in this world more stressful and hopeless to conquer than being in debt. With student debt having recently surpassed $1.73 trillion dollars in America, it’s a frightening reality to see the current generation being pressured to get a job that pays well enough to survive, let alone live comfortably, without ever having a moment to think about what they want to do.
Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is one of those people. She works as a deliverer in a catering company, struggling to pay off her student loans, and is unable to get a better job due to having a minor criminal record in the past. With every job interview going nowhere and her options running low, Emily takes a gig that puts her into a shady underground world of “dummy shopping,” a business that involves buying and selling items with stolen credit cards. Soon, she strikes a working relationship with Youcef (Theo Rossi), the middleman with a dream to get out one day.
You can say that Emily finds herself seduced by the quick cash, but what makes Emily the Criminal strike a chord is writer/director John Patton Ford’s sense of balance between desperation and anger. Plaza channels so much frustration into this character, in a performance that is both psychologically and physically demanding. With that comes a refreshing take on this kind of protagonist in this kind of genre. Plenty of times throughout the film, things go south on Emily, and she’s at the end of her rope. But again and again, Ford’s writing and Plaza’s acting sensibilities will allow Emily and Youcef to push through.
It’s clear from the very beginning that Emily always had it in her. Even during her dead-end job interviews, she isn’t hesitant to talk back to her interviewer. She’s a woman who seeks confrontation and even though she makes plenty of morally questionable decisions, you can understand the real pain that fuels each one. With Ford’s sensibilities in trusting handheld camerawork, several stressful sequences in Emily the Criminal feel like something the Safdie brothers would be proud of. But Emily is a protagonist who carries it through. She makes most of the film an emotionally investing and satisfying experience.
Though the second half falls more into straightforward crime thriller tropes, Emily the Criminal remains consistently tense and entertaining thanks to two terrific performances from Plaza and Rossi and an ever-present looming air of financial burden on our characters. It makes you think about all the real Emilys and Youcefs out there who are objectively committing a crime but are doing so to get by and survive this harsh capitalist climate.
Emily the Criminal premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2022.
Did you see Call Jane or Emily the Criminal? What did you think? Let us know in the comments below!
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