Angry Annie

France, 1974. Annie works in a factory, has two children and becomes pregnant again. Abortion is banned. She finds an address, pays, and has an illegal abortion; it goes badly and she is taken to hospital. There she meets a group of women. The group performs abortions openly and does not hide it; they hold meetings, explain the method to women and speak to the press. Annie goes first to get help, then stays. Blandine Lenoir directs. Laure Calamy takes the lead. The movement it describes is real: MLAC, the movement for freedom of abortion and contraception, performed abortions openly while the ban held and did so as a political act. The method is real too: the suction procedure had only recently reached France in those years, and the movement taught it to people who were not doctors. The narrative builds Annie's politicisation step by step; she is nowhere a ready made militant and her change is slow. The film does not make abortion a matter for debate; its subject is access and solidarity. Abortion was legalised in France by the Veil law in 1975, and the film is set just before that date. The meeting scenes are its best part; the women talk and the camera does not intervene. Who it is for: viewers who like political history drama and Laure Calamy. Who it is not for: some sections are didactic, there are many characters, and the narrative stops from time to time.