‘Joy’: How Three Pioneering Scientists Gave Birth to IVF

Cute British whimsy can be exhausting, and Joy doesn’t skimp on it. Nonetheless, despite its feel-good corniness, Ben Taylor’s film, which premiers Nov. 22 on Netflix, is an undeniably moving tale about the birth of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a historic achievement that literally changed millions of lives. Following a stock formula pioneered by the likes of The Full Monty, Calendar Girls, and Kinky Boots in order to recount the heroic efforts of the three individuals responsible for this medical breakthrough, it’s a tribute to scientific innovation and compassion that, no matter its obvious manipulations, adeptly pulls at the heartstrings.

Though it dissipates as the film nears its uplifting climax, quirky cheesiness is the initial order of the day in Joy.

Arriving in Cambridge in 1968 for a job interview with Robert Edwards (James Norton), Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie) takes off her wet shoe to reveal a toe sticking out of her ripped stockings. This is Robert’s first up-close-and-personal impression of the eccentric Jean, since he’s crawling around on the floor trying to catch a pregnant mouse that’s escaped confinement, and which is key to his fertilization research. Robert believes that he can remove a woman’s egg, inseminate it, and then place it back in her body, thus providing her with a child. To do this, however, he needs an expert in laparoscopy, which compels him to seek out the aid of the technique’s foremost expert, Dr. Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy).

Together, this threesome unites to attempt the world’s first in vitro fertilization, setting up shop in a dusty room in an Oldham hospital and getting to work with minimal resources. Central to their endeavor is a group of test subjects who have failed to conceive on their own and are willing to be guinea pigs for this groundbreaking trial. These brave women eventually dub themselves “The Ovum Club,” enduring regular needle pricks in the hope of being blessed with a child. At the same time, Robert fights for their cause by regularly appearing on television, where he suffers the slings and arrows of fellow scientists and citizens who decry him as a Dr. Frankenstein intent on overturning the natural order by playing God.

Of course, Robert, Patrick, and Jean are doing just that, and Joy understands that it was for the best, establishing them as rational and caring individuals intent on helping mankind, and their adversaries as callous, narrow-minded fools committed to their own traditional religious and/or scientific ideologies. Pitting noble and considerate protagonists against figures of conservative cruelty and thoughtlessness is a decidedly standard set-up, and director Taylor and writer Jack Thorne deliberately cast their tale as a stereotypical Little Engine That Could fable. Nonetheless, this conflict isn’t historically inaccurate, and the further it proceeds along its track, the less the film partakes in twee humor, thereby somewhat alleviating its preciousness.

There’s no mystery to Joy; on July 25, 1978, Louise Joy Brown is destined to become the first IVF “test tube” baby. What’s left, then, is a dramatization of Robert, Patrick, and Jean’s struggles to stay the course amidst a bevy of obstacles. Those include numerous laboratory setbacks that frustrate Robert and Patrick and threaten to sabotage their funding and their reputations, as well as the personal hardships suffered by Jean, who’s rejected by both her church and a devout mother, Gladys May (Joanna Scanlan), who believes that IVF treatment is blasphemous and makes Jean a “sinner.” Moreover, Jean must grapple with her own endometriosis, which prevents her from conceiving children, and the attendant feelings of anger and jealousy that naturally arise from her work with those who have a legitimate shot at attaining the dream she desires.

All of this is schematically laid out by Joy, right down to the fact that, by fighting against IVF and shunning Jean, Gladys May denies herself her own child. Numerous scenes are designed to raise viewers’ ire, as when Robert is accosted by angry TV-studio audience members for merely wanting to provide wives with the ability to procreate, and the script doesn’t play coy about the idea that IVF isn’t just about having babies; it’s about empowering women. Addressing Jean’s concern that they’re trying to create life in the same facility that performs abortions, nurse Muriel (Tanya Moody) states, “We are here to give women a choice. Every choice. That’s all that matters, and it’s all that should matter to you.”

Such bluntness is emblematic of the entire affair, whether it’s Patrick telling Robert, “You’re aware they’ll throw the book at us. The Church, the state, the world. We will unite them all against us,” or it’s Robert encouraging Jean with, “We’re making the impossible possible, Jean. You’ll see!”, or it’s Jean, in a moment of crisis, lamenting, “This was a beautiful dream. And I really did believe in it! But all this, it’s cost me everything. And I can’t.”

Joy can’t stop saying everything out loud and in the most straightforward manner. Yet it knows how to melodramatically infuriate and rouse, and it becomes quite moving as its characters set aside their petty differences—and their personal hang-ups about failure—to treat this vexing and traumatic medical problem. That they’re sparing women the shame and self-loathing that comes from not fulfilling their expected (and in many cases, sought-after) social and marital functions is merely further reason to root for Robert, Patrick, and Jean. Theirs is a virtuous—if not divine—mission, and with sturdy performances from McKenzie, Norton, and Nighy, the film lionizes it as an unmitigated triumph that silenced most of its backwards, fanatical critics.

That said, there are those in this country and elsewhere who—even in the face of millions of successful IVF births worldwide—would still challenge the procedure on moralistic or religious grounds. Joy, therefore, is only a celebration on the surface; beneath its inspiring façade lurks an urgent reminder that it takes courage and resolve to fight the forces of ignorance and intolerance, especially when it comes to women’s rights, which are always under threat, and often attacked under the guise of upholding safety, virtue, and God.