Joy at London Film Festival review: this Netflix sob-fest with Bill Nighy is unmissable

Joy film review and star rating from the London Film Festival: ★★★★☆

Thomasin McKenzie does a spiffing impression of Renée Zellweger as Bridget Jones in Netflix’s Joy. Whenever there’s bad news, she scrunches up her face like an enraged toddler, like Zellweger does when either Colin Firth or Hugh Grant do the dirty on her. And when there’s a turn up for the books McKenzie stretches her features so wide she uses every muscle to generate the brightest beam. The 24-year-old New Zealander has oodles of warmth that makes her an obvious fit for this heartfelt tribute to the pioneering women at the forefront of the first wave of IVF treatment in the 1970s.

Mckenzie’s nuclear beam isn’t the only familiar thing about Joy: it is ‘Netflixed’ in every measurable way, foregrounding an important but overlooked real life story, much like The Beautiful Game, is epically feel-good, and in terms of the cinematography, looks more dolled up than Zellweger on the red carpet. Put simply, Joy is a joy. I cried until I ran out of tissues.

Joy at the London Film Festival: This Netflix film is a vital education

It follows Jean Purdy, a British nurse who in the 1960s and 1970s was instrumental in birthing the first IVF children alongside scientist Robert Edwards, played by James Norton, and Bill Nighy’s surgeon Patrick Steptoe. IVF – the process of artificially fertilising embryos outside of the female womb – was highly controversial. Voices from the church and state tried to have the practice banned, until in 1978 Louise Joy Brown became the world’s first IVF birth. The treatment helped thousands of women who couldn’t conceive naturally. 

But Joy doesn’t only bang on about babies; Joy Purdy is promiscuous and doesn’t want her own family. While the real life nurse, who died of cancer in 1985 aged 39, wasn’t shouting about her singledom, she was a proud progressive, turning down marriage and putting a strain on her relationship with her mother to pursue the lifestyle that worked for her. McKenzie spoke to City AM about her fondness for playing unconventional females and Purdy is an engrossing woman to play. She has both unfettered charm and a steeliness and ambition (the latter of which got her in the room with the world-leading experts in the first place).

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Nighy’s also on great form. He must have enjoyed that his iconic skinny fit suits are of the film’s era (I assume the costume department took the day off) and he gets a couple of those classic Bill Nighy ‘I’m an old man and can be acerbic if I want to’ moments, including one where he gives a full-throttle “f*ck off* to a journalist hurtling questions at him near the hospital.

Thank goodness Netflix didn’t try to force a romantic storyline between Purdy and James Norton’s medic; that they didn’t have so much as one lingering eye contact moment is perhaps the film’s most progressive aspect. Their connection over exhausted roadside suppers and late-night drinks is solely about advancing IVF treatment. Platonic friendships are fast becoming a narrative talking point, with Heartstopper and new West End show Why Am I So Single celebrating the notion this autumn.

It might look plush, with gorgeous Cambridge scenes to pore over where the hospital is based. And yet, Joy’s best trait is how it simply relays the story of the first IVF birth. It also gives commendable screen time to the dozens of women who came through the clinic and veered so close to childbirth to advance the cause for those who came later. There’s no saccharine romance, no random sex scenes to put on the poster: the story is good enough on its own. And for that alone you’ll need a supermarket-sized stash of Kleenex. I certainly did. 

The London Film Festival continues until 20 October and tickets are online

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