Roe V Wade Movie Review
The writers of Roe V Wade take the real life case the film is based on and carefully hand pick what they show you in order to meet the own ideals and opinions. A real let down.
What’s It All About
Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Dr. Mildred Jefferson square off in a national battle in this untold conspiracy that led to the most famous and controversial court case in history.
My Opinion
Any film dealing with such a sensitive subject as abortion is always going to polarize opinions. Such a fragile subject needs to be handled delicately with close care and attention being paid to the audience from every angle. Unfortunately writers Nick Loeb, Cathy Allyn and Ken Kushner have thrown caution to the wind and set out to deliver a tale that pulls no punches.
The plot revolves around the real life case that the title of the movie is based, Roe V Wade in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. However, the real story which is the focus of this film is Dr. Bernard Nathanson who later became an anti-abortion activist.
Nick Loeb, Cathy Allyn and Ken Kushner have a clear pro-life stance and it shines through in this movie. Although the movie begins with some heart, as, after his girlfriend going through an abortion herself, Dr. Bernard Nathanson claims he wants to carry out abortions to ensure “no other girl has to go through that again”. Although what actually became of his girlfriend wasn’t clear. The film soon shifts to painting out Dr. Bernard Nathanson and co. as money-grabbers willing to perform as many abortions as possible to make as much money as they can. I actually found this a little disturbing. The women are dehumanised and his surgery felt almost like a factory line as one woman after another lay on beds ready to see the doctor. It did not go into details about the reasoning behind abortions or why women would request them, it only showed the doctors as being interested in making money and women all too keen to get rid of their babies. Watching the chorus of “There’s a fortune in abortion” is another disturbing moment that lingers in the memory long after the movie has finished.
One particular scene with Dr. Nathonson and his partner Lawrence Lader claiming to feed the media, and Hollywood, with made up statistics, that are then painted all over the news, who knew ‘fake news’ was around in 1973. Propaganda created to help their case and the media all to keen to eat it up. Moments such as a judge winking at attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee to let them know they have got the decision only add to the unbiased storytelling. Other questionable moments include some Supreme Court justices being pressured by their families for their vote. Others are noted in the film as having conflicts of interests or bowing to media pressure.
One scene I found particularly disturbing involved the police raiding and illegal abortion clinic and carrying out buckets full of dismembered fetuses. Another scene involves a fetus pieced together in parts on a surgical tray. These scenes placed into the movie to shock the audience with no thought or tact has gone into this and the only thing this is likely to do is offend. There is seemingly no thought to these scenes other than the shock value they carry.
With a runtime of just under two hours they writers have tried to cram far to much information into this film. This results in characters being under-developed, a lot of the arguments don’t get the time they need and the court room action is at a minimum. There was simply not enough time to tell this story in the right way, there was way too much going on. In terms of characters, there was that many it was hard to keep track of who everyone was and what the purpose was.
The pace is way off in this movie. The overuse of freeze-frames and voice-over narration did not help. The information dumps soon became tiresome and a little bit too much to take in at times. The flash backs and skips forward in time only aid in the confusion. Again this can be contributed to trying to fit too much in to the movie. Overall the movie moved far too fast.
The whole of the film seems to be filtered with some kind of Sepia haze. I am unsure if this is a way of attempting to age the film but it doesn’t do the job and just makes it harder to watch. If something isn’t going to add to the picture then don’t include it.
The cast is is a real mixed bag. As you can expect, the more experienced actors put in a decent shift, displaying some good character work. Unfortunately the likes of Jon Voight, Steve Guttenberg and Robert Davi are reduced to courtroom characters. Nick Loeb, who wrote and directed, also stars as Dr. Bernard Nathanson. Loeb really seemed to struggle with some of the more emotional scenes.
The Verdict
Roe V Wade is a pro-life film that takes what it needs to tell the story they want to tell. Some far fetched and shocking scenes designed to offend the audience are disturbing to watch. If I took anything away from this it was to go and research the case myself.
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