Elisabeth Moss to Topline Film About Underground Abortion Network
Elisabeth Moss is pivoting from one women’s rights narrative to another. The star of the feminist dystopian drama “The Handmaid’s Tale” has signed on to topline Simon Curtis’ (“My Week With Marilyn”) indie film “Call Jane,” Variety reports. The project will center on the Jane Collective, a real 1960s underground abortion network. Moss’ character is a married woman who, after realizing she is pregnant, goes to the collective for help.
Hayley Schore (“Black Box”) and Roshan Sethi (“Code Black”) penned the “Call Jane” screenplay. Robbie Brenner, Jeff Kwatinetz, and Kevin McKeon are producing.
While it’s great to see Moss lead another project about women resisting the patriarchy — between this, “Handmaid’s Tale,” and “Top of the Lake,” she’s becoming the actress to watch if you crave feminist stories — we wish the producers of “Call Jane” had hired a female director. A story about women who were forced to go underground to attain safe abortions — because, you know, the male-run government failed to address their family planning needs — seems like it’d be better served with a woman behind the camera.
Rachel Carey’s “Ask for Jane,” also about the Jane Collective, went into production this summer. Carey’s film is a female affair onscreen and off: she wrote the script and star Cait Johnston is producing alongside Caroline Hirsch. “Ask for Jane” is expected to hit theaters sometime in 2018.
Moss received the Emmy for best actress in a drama series for “The Handmaid’s Tale” on Sunday. She plays Offred (formerly called June) in the Hulu series, a woman trying to survive Gilead, a society where fertile women are repeatedly raped and forced to bear children for its most powerful men. Moss also starred in Jane Campion’s mystery series “Top of the Lake: China Girl,” which aired on Sundance last week.
