A new film comes at exactly the right time.
On October 16, during one of his final town halls before the election, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump responded to a question about the threats to fertility treatment by declaring he was the “father of IVF.” (Though, a few moments later, he admitted he was still learning about the IVF process.) Mere days later, a movie called JOY dropped on Netflix, with the tagline “The birth of IVF.” It was just a coincidence, but it couldn’t have hit the streaming service at a better time.
The movie tells the story of the three pioneers of infertility treatment: nurse and embryologist Jean Purdy (played by Thomasin McKenzie), scientist Robert Edwards (James Norton), and surgeon Patrick Steptoe (Bill Nighy). And the timing of its premiere was as perfect as a grade-AA euploid embryo. (In IVF speak, that’s a top-quality embryo with the best chances of leading to a live birth.)
Of course, JOY was in the works long before the attacks on IVF that began early in 2024, when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) should be considered children. In-vitro fertilization often involves the disposal of embryos that are unhealthy and unsafe to implant — and costly and unnecessary to store. (Infertility can also result in life-threatening scenarios, including ectopic pregnancies, in which the embryo is growing in the wrong place, and the pregnancy must be terminated to preserve the parent’s life.) This ruling meant that couples and clinics involved in IVF were at risk legally.
JOY, which takes place in Britain in the 1970s, follows the scientists responsible for IVF — the technical fathers and mothers of it — on their 10-year journey to birth the first “test-tube” baby, Louise Joy Brown. To pay homage to one of the unsung heroes of the process, the movie is told from the perspective of Jean Purdy, who worked closely with Edwards and Steptoe and the many other patients involved in all the grueling trials that led to the first successful reproductive technology-aided pregnancy.
The film’s release couldn’t come at a more crucial time in the fight for reproductive rights, and while its co-creators and co-writers, married couple Jack Thorne and Rachel Mason, always saw it as a political piece, it’s also a celebration of science — and an ode to any person who’s struggled to conceive. “It’s our journey,” Mason tells Katie Couric Media in an interview. “We had seven rounds of IVF to get our son, Elliot, and it was a very trying time,” she says. “I think once you’ve been through this, it never really leaves you.” That was one of the reasons they jumped at the opportunity to make this movie. “Jack was approached to do this four or five years ago, and I said, ‘You’ve got to do this. This is such an important story.’ And then the next day, Jack said, ‘Well, will you get involved?’”
While the pair was making the movie as reproductive rights began crumbling in the U.S., Thorne says he thought IVF “was political” long before that. He recalls, “When we were trying to persuade Bill [Nighy] to do the film, I wrote him a letter saying why I thought fertility was a really big political matter. Jean, Steptoe, and Edwards were fighting against not just societal establishment figures, but also medical establishment figures to justify why fertility mattered. And fertility is still not really seen as a disease.” He notes, “Louise Brown’s parents were working-class people. They had so little money. And the fact that the first IVF baby is a working-class IVF baby really, really matters. A working-class IVF baby is a very, very rare thing. Treatment is seen as a luxury good that some people can get access to if they’ve got the funds or the right insurance policy. And that’s so wrong.”
“I want to tell political stories,” Thorne (otherwise known for the film Enola Holmes and series His Dark Materials) says. “I want to tell stories that speak to the moment. That’s what I try to do as a writer. I’m pleased we’re able to pose this question at this time.” He adds, “I mean, with all political films, you hope that the reason for them disappears very quickly.”
Mason and Thorne were passionate about the film’s message revolving around a woman’s right to choose, which resulted in a pivotal exchange in the movie: After facing scrutiny and ostracism from her Catholic church (and her religious mother) for her work with Dr. Steptoe, Jean confronts the head of his clinic, Muriel (who was also unrecognized for her contributions), about the abortions. When Jean tries to justify infertility treatment versus abortion, Muriel shuts her down: “We are here to give women a choice.”
“That moment really mattered to us,” says Thorne. “This story is about fulfilling women. We didn’t want to say, ‘This is a film about how all women want babies and need babies, and we must give women babies.’ But rather, this is a film about choice. If women want children and there’s a medical reason that’s preventing them from having children, then we will help them overcome that medical reason. That’s what IVF is about.”
Asked about her reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling while making the film, Mason says, “I can’t imagine [what that must have felt like for families]. From when we were going through it, if we had frozen embryos that we couldn’t access or encountered doctors who were afraid to do anything…it would have been devastating. It’s cruel. There have been 12 million IVF babies since Louise Brown, who is 45 years old now. And the fact that that could be under threat doesn’t make any sense.” Of the movie’s timeliness, Thorne adds, “What’s happening in America…there’s an urgency to it. In the UK, the question has disappeared, so IVF has sort of been sidelined as a priority.”
The filmmakers, too, couldn’t help but notice the seemingly perfect timing of Trump’s comment. “We tell the story of the two fathers and the mother of IVF. And I’m sure they’d be delighted to pass their hat to Donald Trump,” Thorne jokes. “‘The father of IVF’ has actually been a contested title for a number of years. So hopefully, we settle that argument.”
Thorne says he hopes JOY “opens up conversations and debate, and asks all sorts of difficult but valid questions about what IVF should be and what IVF is.” And while the timing of their movie comes at a fraught and thorny time, Thorne and Mason also want viewers to feel — yes — joy as they watch it. Thorne says, “We mustn’t forget that this film is about that moment when IVF became possible. All these current political challenges are so depressing — but these people made this possible.”
