David Farnor | On 23, Nov 2024

Director: Ben Taylor
Cast: Bill Nighy, James Norton, Thomasin McKenzie, Charlie Murphy, Rish Shah, Joanna Scanlan
Certificate: 12

IVF today is a common treatment for many who unable to conceive naturally. It’s perhaps hard to imagine a time before then, but Joy takes us back to the very first “test tube baby”, as the press dubbed her, who was born in July 1978. Her middle name gives this film its title: Joy. The process was a scandalous one that drew much controversy and criticism, and Ben Taylor’s drama movingly contrasts the ire and outrage with the happiness at the story’s heart.

Our window on to events is Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie), an embryologist nurse who finds herself getting a job with the groundbreaking biologist Robert Edwards (James Norton). Together they convince Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy) to team up with them to try and solve the problem of infertility – Robert providing the brains behind the concept, Patrick supplying the surgical skills and Jean expertly managing the lab, the patients and driving along the whole thing.

History took far too long to recognise Jean’s role, with her male counterparts getting credit for the scientific breakthrough years before she was even acknowledged. Jack Thorne’s script intentionally rights that wrong by centring this entire account on her journey. We follow her, Robert and Patrick as they travel back and forth between Robert’s base in Cambridge to a rundown wing of the hospital in Oldham, where Patrick works.

They’re an endearing group. James Norton brings a goofy charm to Robert’s prickly, awkward Englishness, while Bill Nighy elevates what could have been a two-dimensional role with his gently twinkling warmth and an understated, genteel kindness. Thomasin McKenzie, meanwhile, brings heart to what essentially a tale of hope – and the determination to bring that hope to others.

Jean’s involvement carries with it more personal stakes than the others, as her mother (the always-excellent Joanna Scanlan) disowns her for going against what she and her church believe. But as it charts a path towards a positive step forward for science, Thorne’s script plays things far too conventional and safe, often leaving the stakes and risk to feel far too perfunctory. Away from Jean’s personal situation, the film never really sinks its teeth into the moral challenges and debates surrounding the intrepid trio – a surprise, given the candid tone of the Netflix series Sex Education, which Taylor directed and exec-produced. The result is a warm and uplifting tale that brings joy, but feels ironically too clinical.

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