‘Angry Annie’ Review: A Stirring French Abortion Drama Driven By a Spirit of Feminist Solidarity

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film CriticThe fashions, fabrics and eye-crossingly patterned wallpapers of the 1970s abound in “Angry Annie,” a French period piece practically painted in avocado green and Le Creuset orange, with hand-crocheted accessories for good measure.

Would that the rest of Blandine Lenoir’s rousing abortion drama felt quite so dated. Instead, in a year where the overturning of Roe v.

Wade signifies a major step back in the collective fight for women’s reproductive rights, this story of women banding together to assert their bodily autonomy in an age of sexual revolution feels all too timely: not merely a compelling reminder of how things were, but a warning of how they could yet be.Bright and predominantly hopeful in tone, and powered by a typically lovable performance from recent César winner Laure Calamy (“Call My Agent”) as a meek wife and mother emboldened by an underground women’s movement, this is a less visceral, more crowdpleasing account of French abortion-rights history than Audrey Diwan’s celebrated “Happening” — which was set a decade earlier than Lenoir’s film, before much community around the cause had taken clear shape.

But it’s no soft lob either, impressing with its inclusive, observant view of how abortion law affects women (and men) across a wide range of ages, social positions and domestic situations, and advocating for a continued collaboration in defending and enacting it.