Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton and Bill Nighy all star in Joy, the story of the world’s first “test-tube baby”
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY NETFLIX
“We’re making the impossible possible,” says James Norton, in the emotional trailer for Netflix’s new film Joy. Starring Norton, Bill Nighy and Thomasin McKenzie, the film tells the story of the scientists who made in vitro fertilisation (IVF) possible.
The film will cover the 10-year journey it took to conceive Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first “test-tube baby”, and if the trailer is anything to go by, it will be an emotional rollercoaster. Told through the perspective of Jean Purdy (McKenzie), a young nurse and embryologist who was heavily involved in developing IVF, the film will explore the toll the inability to carry children takes on women.
But like all good rollercoasters, there are highs as well as lows – the trailer indicated the film will lean into some of the humorous elements of the story as well. The first we see of Norton’s future Nobel Prize winner Robert Edwards is him crawling around on the floor, yelling: “Stop! The mouse escaped and I only just got her pregnant!”
The film will also discuss opposition to the pioneering of reproductive medicine. The trailer includes several people telling Jean and co. that they are wrong for pursuing this line of medicine, and one clip sees graffiti reading “Frankenstein lives here” plastered on the hospital they work in.
Despite opposition at the time, IVF is now held as one of “the most remarkable medical breakthroughs of the 20th century”. It has been life-changing for many many who could not conceive, whether because of infertility or because they are not in a cis heterosexual couple.
Though the 2022 Women’s Health Strategy for England promised to remove financial barriers to IVF for LGBTQ+ couples, implementing these policies have been slow. At its current rate, it’ll take 20 years to remove all barriers preventing LGBTQIA people accessing IVF. More information on the IVF For All campaign can be found on our website.
Joy will premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on Tuesday 15 October. It will then be released in UK cinemas a month later (15 November) and available to stream globally on Netflix from 22 November.
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I Think Thomasin McKenzie would be great choice as Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat In MCU