Film Review: Joy

As a former IVF patient, I knew that 'Joy', the new biographical drama released on Netflix, would provoke something of an emotional response in me. What I didn't expect was how quickly this would happen. From the opening titles, with images of embryonic cells in vitro, I began to experience a catch in my throat and stinging eyes. I was taken back to the moment I was handed printed images of the brave little cells, gamely dividing in their dish like tiny Venn diagrams that would become – at a gap of three years – my own longed-for children. Glancing across the sofa at my equally choked up husband, there was nothing for it but to discreetly pull a box of tissues within reaching distance and watch.

The story of IVF, from its early years in the 1960s to the birth in 1978 of Louise Brown, is well-known, particularly within the BioNews readership. This film, whose screenplay is written by Jack Thorne (himself a father through IVF) offers a sympathetic, accessible version of events that puts the original scientists, Dr Patrick Steptoe, Dr Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy, very much at the centre.

Foregrounding the often-overlooked Purdy, played by Thomasin Mackenzie, characterised here as self-assured, serious and committed, her role as nurse and embryologistis is shown as key. Purdy's own fictionalised struggles as a young woman with endometriosis and an oppressively religious background are depicted as testimony to her own capacity for resilience; the team's sense of purpose in attempting to fertilise human eggs in vitro enabled them to endure abysmal harassment from an ignorant press and a frequently unsupportive medical establishment.

The presence of Bill Nighy as Dr Steptoe and James Norton as Dr Edwards gives the film an undeniable sense of Britishness. The late 1960s (the events unfold from 1968 until 1978) are sketched in dreary washed-out browns and oranges, with Purdy and Dr Edwards' frequent journeys between Oldham and Cambridge punctuated by egg and chips lunches at roadside cafes. The locations give a wonderful period feel, from the ghostly institutional abandoned wing of Kershaw's Cottage Hospital in Oldham to the G-Plan functionality of academic common rooms.

The laboratory in which the team operate, all stained wooden worktops and glass utensils stacked on open shelves, reminded me of my own school chemistry labs, unchanged since the Second World War; a far cry from the sterile modern laboratories in use today, all gleaming surfaces and state of the art technology. This sense of time and place also underscores the wide age and class differences in the team from the patrician Dr Steptoe to Purdy's modest background in post-war Cambridge.

A recurring theme is the team's stated belief (against popular opinion) that infertility covers a wide range of medical conditions that are barriers to conception and as such deserves medical treatment.

The film is deeply sympathetic to the plight of the women who were part of the IVF programme. The patients are imbued with stoicism and dignity, even though their individual plights are glossed over in favour of the primary narrative.

In this dramatised version, Purdy is rejected by her church and her own mother (a complex performance by Joanna Scanlon) for her work. While this didn't happen to the real Purdy, it serves as an effective device for the many voices competing to condemn the trio's work.

The press accused them of trying to create something unnatural, a 'Frankenstein' project. In an entirely fictitious part, Dr Edwards goes on TV to defend his work against the DNA pioneer Professor James Watson, who is concerned about DNA abnormality. I wonder what 96-year-old Professor Watson makes of his depiction in the film – he is the only person depicted in the film still alive.

If there is a criticism to be made, it is that the necessity to add more colour and drama to a quiet story about scientific dedication has made a villain of Purdy's mother and portrayed Professor Watson as smug and unsupportive of an area of research every bit as relevant as the discovery of the DNA double helix.

The dialogue, too, has been modernised – the automatic deference towards any male practitioner has been replaced by a much more modern-sounding refusal to be dismissed. I would love to think that the real Purdy was as assertive and self-assured as she is portrayed in the film, but in reality, I am simply not sure this was the case as she is always described as shy and self-effacing by those who met her.

Matron Muriel Harris, whose pivotal role in preparing and equipping the initial laboratory at Kershaw's Hospital is also frequently forgotten, is formidably played by Tanya Moodie. Some of the light comedy works well (an absconded mouse comes to mind) and Nighy's incomparable dead-pan asides (no-one does a micro-shrug better) lighten the mood considerably. His car park encounter with a pompous consultant played by Miles Jupp is hilarious and provides a discreet smattering of gentle humour to what could otherwise be a slightly dour experience.

While the screenplay necessarily heightens and fictionalises a great deal of the story of IVF, it's worth remembering the truly dramatic impact of the scientific discovery itself, with the new understanding it brought to the use of laparoscopy for egg retrieval and a great deal more besides.

To date, around 12 million children have been born through IVF since Louise Brown came into the world in 1978. What 'Joy' does, so successfully, is show the endless perseverance and self-belief needed to achieve a discovery of such momentous importance. By the closing credits we were audibly sniffing, and the tissue box was well and truly empty.