Joy Review

“We are making the impossible possible,” says one of the characters at the beginning of Joy. As the audience embarks on this seemingly impossible journey with the main characters, it seems that this is exactly what they are setting out to do. Naturally, this makes for a very exciting premise that allows the audience to instantly root for the main characters of this story and the groundbreaking discovery they are about to make. After all, IVF is something we are now used to in 2024, but the movie takes us back to a time when this was not the case.

Based on a real-life story, Joy spans a decade of history between 1968 and 1978 and explores the very first in vitro fertilisation in the world, which to this day is considered one of the most remarkable medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. The movie focuses on three trailblazers: Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie), a nurse, Robert Edwards (James Norton), a visionary scientist, and Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy), an innovative surgeon. The three come together, despite opposition coming from the church, the state, the media, and even the medical environment, to create the first test tube baby in the world, Louise Joy Brown.

Undoubtedly, the film is held together by the strong acting performances of the main cast. James Norton particularly stands out as a ionate scientist who, despite all his faults, the audience can’t help but want to see succeed. In this movie, Norton proves his versatility as he can hold his own while sharing the screen with an acting legend like Bill Nighy who brings out a soft and lovable side of his character as the film goes on. Ultimately, it is the ensemble performance and the way the three main actors bounce off each other’s energy in every scene they share that stands out the most with the impressive chemistry between the three of them.

As a movie about giving women the choice to be mothers, I liked the inclusion of how discussions around abortion, which was just like IVF a controversial topic at the time, and in many ways still is. However, I also wished this had been discussed more as well as the parallels between abortion and IVF in of medical and societal advancements regarding women’s reproductive health, but it mostly feels like a throw-away plot more than anything else. The film also does a good job of translating the scientific material for the audience who, for a moment, seems to understand exactly what they are talking about.

Unfortunately, other than that the writing is the weakest element of the film from the very beginning. The stakes don’t feel as high as they should until the second act of the movie: for all the talk about everyone opposing their research, we only actually see very little of that and, therefore, can’t perceive the main conflict of the film with our own eyes. With a stronger second act that finally manages to pull the audiences in emotionally, the movie seems to finally be going the right way only to get lost in its final act again as we already know how this will end.

The film begins with a voiceover, and that might be precisely its issue. Doctor Edward’s voice comes to us from the future, confirming that their research and work proved to be a success before we even meet the characters or see what they are trying to obtain with their medical experiments. While this does in nicely at the end when we do go back to the voiceover, the plotline it introduces about the plaque and recognising everyone’s involvement felt like a throwaway that could have been explored in much more interesting and better ways.

Overall, Joy is a film that might very well be suited for its target audience and one I can certainly see ing the Netflix catalogue as it fits perfectly with the general tone of the platform. It is far from being the best film of the year – or the best Netflix film at the London Film Festival – but the strong second act allows for an enjoyable watch. Moreover, some particularly good performances make it worth the watch even for those in the audience who might not necessarily be interested in, nor know much about, the story it sets out to tell.

★★★

Playing as part of the 2023 BFI London Film Festival on October 15th, 16th, and 19th / Out in cinemas in the UK on November 15/ Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton, Bill Nighy / Dir: Ben Taylor/ Netflix, Pathe / 12A