Producers: Robbie Brenner, David Wulf, Kevin McKeon, Lee Broda, Claude Amadeo and Michael D’Alto   Director: Phyllis Nagy   Screenplay: Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi   Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Sigourney Weaver, Chris Messina, Kate Mara, Wunmi Mosaku, Cory Michael Smith, Grace Edwards, John Magaro, Geoffrey Cantor, Aida Turturro, Bianca D’Ambrosio, Bruce MacVittie, John Rothman, Rebecca Henderson, Maia Scalia, Sean King and Alison Jaye   Distributor: Roadside Attractions

Grade: C+

Given that it deals with an underground organization of women trying to arrange abortions for women in pre-Roe vs. Wade America, “Call Jane” often manifests a surprisingly upbeat tone.  The camaraderie of the activists is sometimes riven by disagreement—at one point the lone black woman (Wunmi Mosaku) challenges the bases on which those to be helped are selected—but the sense of solidarity among the members is palpable, and there’s an air of exuberance to their efforts except at its darkest moments.  And there is no consideration of the moral and ethical issues surrounding abortion—the approach is unambiguously, even proscriptively, pro-choice. Moreover the ending—with the announcement of the Roe decision—is positively triumphant, which, given the Supreme Court’s recent Dobbs decision, now carries an ironic subtext.

That’s one of the narrative problems with the film, which curiously skirts the very real dangers the group faced.  There are a few mentions of the need to maintain good relations with “the mob,” for example, but no explanation beyond that, and the one instance in which a policeman (John Magaro) enters the scene turns out to be much less menacing than initially suggested.  Indeed, one might think that it represents a rather cheap attempt to engender a bit of suspense.

An even more serious drawback is the decision to strip down what was a collaborative action to something more singular, and to do in a fictional way.  At the center of Hayley Schore and Roshan Sethi‘s screenplay is Joy (Elizabeth Banks), the wife of lawyer Will (Chris Messina).  They have a teen daughter, Charlotte (Grace Edwards), and are now looking forward to the birth of their second child.  Sadly, after she has a fainting spell, Joy undergoes a series of tests and her physician (Geoffrey Cantor) informs the couple that she has a serious heart condition that will endanger her life if she continues the pregnancy.  He suggests a therapeutic abortion, but that procedure requires the approval of the hospital board, and the all-male directors, led by two stuffily dismissive types (Bruce MacVittie and John Rothman), summarily decline the request.

Joy decides to seek out an unauthorized abortion entirely on her own, but rejects going through with it at places that look shabby and unsafe.  Eventually a street notice takes her to the Janes, where Virginia (Sigourney Weaver, as rough and tough as she is prim and controlled in the recent “The Good House”) presides over an operation that, rather improbably, depends on only one practitioner, a capable but somewhat sleazy fellow named Dean (Cory Michael Smith).  Initially apprehensive, Joy finally goes through with the operation, masking it at home as a miscarriage.

Not long afterward Joy receives a call from Virginia, asking her to drive a young woman to the organization’s apartment for the procedure.  Joy tries to decline, but feels a sense of obligation, and soon she’s become a full member of the collective, especially good at helping to calm patients down so that Dean can complete their procedures.  She eventually becomes convinced she can perform Dean’s function herself, after investigating his background and what the process entails.  That’s only the start of the activists becoming even more directly involved as a group.

Meanwhile Joy’s domestic life changes.  Will is frustrated by her long absences—supposedly to art classes, though there’s no evidence of her work in them—and is tempted to fill the time with their widowed neighbor Lana (Kate Mara, in a reserved, enigmatic performance).  Nor is Charlotte unaware that something’s off.  Eventually the visit from that cop brings everything into the open.

But rather than continuing the story from that point, “Call Jane” abruptly shifts to 1973, with Virginia, Joy and their colleagues celebrating the Roe decision.  Virginia’s speech mentions raids and Will’s help in mounting legal defenses, but none of that is dramatized.  Instead the film just ends with a victory lap that, in view of recent setbacks, has proven to be premature.

That does, however, add a topical twist to the movie, since it’s apparent that the work of the Janes might now have to be resumed in a different context, and in a different way. There are gaps one wishes had been filled—Aida Turturro, for instance, plays a nun who’s a member of the Janes, but she remains a peripheral figure whose habit gets more consideration than her motives, and the Lana subplot feels tacked on for soapy effect, and then is promptly forgotten—but the acting is good overall, with Banks convincingly tremulous as an ordinary housewife caught up in a situation she could never have imagined being thrust into, and gaining confidence and certainty along the way, and Weaver making Virginia a steely figure who’s nonetheless willing to consider criticism of her leadership.  (One wishes her background had been given some filling-out).  Messina hasn’t much to work with, but struggles to flesh out the shallow conception of Will, and Smith gives Dean a creepiness appropriate to his shady doings; among the other “Janes,” Mosaku stands out for her intensity.

Production designer Jona Tochet and costumer Julie Weiss have worked hard to provide convincing period detail (the story starts in 1968, as an introductory scene referring to the demonstrations at the Democratic Convention of that year establishes); the clothes fit the period, as do the cars scrupulously chosen for the sequences on the road).  And while the Hartford, Connecticut locations might not completely persuade us of late sixties Chicago, cinematographer Greta Zozula, employing a gritty, often dark visual palette, makes them fairly plausible.   Isabella Summers’ score is spare, and except for the missing pieces in the script, Peter McNulty’s editing is reasonably smooth.

Those who would like a more historically complete—and expansive—treatment of the Jane Collective are directed to the HBO documentary “The Janes,” which of course takes a much more sober approach than Nagy’s film.  It makes a useful complement—some would say corrective—and is available on HBO Max.  And, of course, anyone wanting a politically and philosophically “balanced” treatment of the continuing debate over abortion should look elsewhere.  But on its own, admittedly limited terms, “Call Jane” fills its goal of celebrating the work of a group of women committed to fighting for a right denied them in the sixties—and would undoubtedly feel they must now fight for again.            

Producers: Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Robbie Rogers, Cora Palfrey and Philip Herd  Director: Michael Grandage    Screenplay: Ron Nyswaner   Cast: Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, Gina McKee, Linus Roache, David Dawson, Rupert Everett, Kadiff Kirwan, Maddie Rice, Dora Davis and Jack Bandeira   Distributor: Prime Video

Grade: C+

Last spring saw the release of Peeter Rebane’s “Firebird,” a fact-based story of a young Russian soldier who fell in love with a fighter pilot at a Soviet air force base in Estonia in the late 1970s; they continued their affair secretly even after the pilot married a friend of theirs, with dire result. The love that dare not speak its name, to use Lord Alfred Douglas’ famous phrase, recurs in a similar triangular form but a different period and place in Michael Grandage’s “My Policeman,” adapted by Ron Nyswaner from Bethan Roberts’ 2012 novel.  Much of the interest the film generates will undoubtedly derive from the fact that superstar Harry Styles plays one of the men.

The story takes place in Sussex, primarily the beach resort of Brighton (where the film was elegantly shot by Ben Davis, the locations, production design by Maria Djurkovic and costumes by Annie Symons offering plenty of rich period detail), in the late 1950s and the 1990s, the time frame shifting back and forth from the one decade to the other.  Mousy Marion Taylor (Emma Corrin), a teacher, has eyes for handsome Tom Burgess (Styles), the brother of one of her friends who joins the police force.  Anxious to improve his mind, Tom asks Marion for help in choosing books to read.  His thirst for knowledge is also incited by a chance meeting with Patrick Hazelwood (David Dawson), the cultured curator of the Brighton museum, who shows him the collection there, as well as at his flat, where he invites the bobby to pose for one of his sketches.  The two wind up in bed together, in a scene that includes some nudity while remaining discreetly enough staged not to offend a mainstream audience. 

Despite this, Tom introduces Marion to Patrick, and all three become friends, going out together to restaurants and operas, though clearly Marion sees the relationship between the two men as curiously close.  Eventually Tom proposes marriage to Marion, and she accepts—though the honeymoon is interrupted by Patrick’s arrival at their remote cabin to cook them a celebratory meal.  He also arranges a clinch with Tom in the garage before departing—a scene that Marion secretly observes, reacting with a stern decision to “fix” her husband.  Meanwhile Patrick’s safety is endangered by his habit of frequenting underground gay clubs and hooking up with other men (at a time when English law criminalized homosexual activity and brutal police methods were marshaled against it).  He also keeps diaries that would prove highly dangerous to him if their contents became known to the authorities.

The tragedy that follows is revealed in flashbacks occurring in the second major portion of the film, set four decades later at Marion and Tom’s seaside house, where Marion (Gina McKee) installs Patrick (Rupert Everett), incapacitated by a stroke, in the spare bedroom, much to the displeasure of Tom (Linus Roache). Tom refuses to have anything to do with their guest and often simply leaves the house for the pub or a walk on the beach with his dog.  Marion insists on nursing the stricken man and prods Tom to reconnect with him, eventually taking a step that forces their reconciliation—partially out of guilt, but also resignation.

The makers of “My Policeman” apparently think that their film is somehow groundbreaking, and the bedroom scenes featuring Styles and Dawson do go a bit further than those in most other films about gay men made for mass consumption.  (It’s certainly far different from the treatment of Andrew Beckett’s sex life in 1993’s “Philadelphia,” which Nyswaner wrote, which was practically nonexistent.)  But British films about the perniciousness of the criminal “stigma” attached to homosexuality prior to 1967 have been around at least since “Victim” (1961), and the trifling amount of skin shown here is now quite tame.

Otherwise with its fastidiously elegant décor and dress the film fits quite neatly into the Masterpiece Theatre mold, and comes across as stuffy despite its desire to seem romantic and daring, with Grandage’s direction and Chris Dickens’ editing adding to the stodgy, often stilted feel.  Another element that feeds into that familiar mood is Steven Price’s syrupy score, which (whether by his choice or Grandage’s) takes a turn into howler territory when Patrick induces Tom to accompany him to Venice as his assistant, ostensibly to collect new pieces for the museum but actually to give them time to enjoy one another away from Marion.  It’s bad enough that Grandage has a nun walk by and theatrically avert her eyes when she notices the two men caressing in an alcove off the sidewalk; but the whole Venice sequence is accompanied by the strains of Vivaldi’s “Gloria,” which suddenly blares out as if to give a celestial imprimatur to their lovemaking.  Not quite as embarrassing, but nonetheless ill-advised, is a scene in which Marion complains to a close colleague (Maddie Rice) about her husband’s sexual inclinations, only to elicit a retort that italicizes her obtuseness and bigotry. In such instances subtlety is tossed out the window.

Insofar as the acting is concerned, much of the attention will be focused on Styles, and one could most charitably describe his performance as adequate, neither dreadful nor indicative of great thespian talent; physically he resembles Ewan McGregor, but dramatically McGregor on an off day  Of the others in the fifties cast, Corrin comes off better than Dawson, effectively conveying the fear and resentment simmering under Marion’s seemingly placid exterior, while he takes a stereotypically effete route.  Likewise McKee’s Marion is the dominant figure in the decades-later scenes that are sometimes clumsily juxtaposed by Dickens with the fifties ones, though even she can’t invest the woman with much more than generalized warmth and regret.  The men are given little opportunity to register anything beyond the obvious—Roache is somber and surly, while Everett growls cantankerously and demands forbidden cigarettes.  The two do share a nice final tableau, however.

Roberts’ book, incidentally, was based on the relationship of eminent writer E.M. Forster with a much younger policeman, Robert Buckingham, and Buckingham’s wife May.  (Roberts wrote of her inspiration in an article in The Guardian of February 17, 2012.)  It’s somewhat tacky, but true, to suggest that “My Policeman” might have been more compelling if it had dramatized the actual Forster-Buckingham story than the fictional one Roberts fashioned from it.