Warning! SPOILERS about Joy ahead.
Netflix’sJoydelivered a satisfying ending because it revealed how the first IVF baby was born, but also for the themes that were an integral part of the biographical drama and were celebrated by the ending.Based on the true story of how three British scientists made IVF a reality,Joyfocuses as much on the research and the scientific obstacles as it does on the human cost suffered by Jean and Bob especially in the form of ruined relationships, death threats and attacks on their and their patients’ privacy.
Indeed, Jean had to fight her mother and her community over the goodness of their intentions throughout the film, and Bob simultaneously tried so hard to make the public empathize with those struggling to conceive, only to be demonized on talk shows and by the press. Considering how the closerJoy’s cast of charactersgot to a successful pregnancy via IVF, the bigger the attempts to interfere with their research were,Jean, Bob and Patrick’s eventual success proved all the more meaningful, a feat of resilience in addition to the good they brought the world by making infertility partially treatable.
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Joy’s Title Explained: Why “Joy” Is Chosen For The Middle Name Of The First IVF Baby, Louise Brown
The Name’s Meaning Is A Testament To The Journey That Brought To The Baby
After the successful delivery via c-section of the Browns’ baby, at the intimate and informal celebration among those involved in the research at Kershaw’s Cottage Hospital,Bob revealed how the Browns had asked him if they wanted to give a second name to their baby, and he proposed Joy. The biographical drama being calledJoythus inevitably reveals the first IVF baby as the center of the story, but the reason why Bob chose Joy – and his collaborators agreed on it being a good choice – has something to do with the entire journey that made Louise Joy Brown’s birth possible.
Jean, Bob and Patrick see their research as having the potential to cure childlessness, to make the world better for those who are infertile and deeply wish for a child.
Throughout the film, Jean, Bob and Patrick see their research as having the potential to cure childlessness, to make the world better for those who are infertile and deeply wish for a child.The steps the trio has to go through to make that possible include almost ten years of failures before the success of Lesley Brown’s pregnancy, making the birth of Louise Brown something close to pure joy, especially given how her birth also meant others might have the same luck through IVF, people who wouldn’t have had a chance otherwise.
How Jean, Bob & Patrick Finally Make A Viable Pregnancy Happen Through IVF
Joy’s true storydoesn’t mention the trio abandoning their research, instead reframing Jean, Bob and Patrick’s attempts simply as failures after 1971 and before 1975. However, in a much more spectacular way,Jean abandoned the research as first inJoyafter learning about the toxic liquid paraffin, choosing her dying mother over trying to solve an impossible puzzle. The solution to their research problem only came after a period of stasis, as that gave them all, and especially Jean, a moment to look at the general overview instead of thinking about specific problems.
InJoy, like in the real story, the egg retrieval was always preceded by hormones, as it gave Jean and Bob more chances by letting them have more eggs.Jean’s idea to use their patients’ menstrual cycle without interfering with it to decide when to collect the eggs thus eliminated the one variable that made the fertilized eggs not be accepted, effectively solving the one issue that plagued Jean, Bob and Patrick ever since they found a way to extract human eggs laparoscopically without damaging them.
The True Reasons Behind Jean’s Interest In IVF Explained
Jean’s Personal History Influenced Why She Wanted The Research To Succeed
The motivations behind the real Jean Purdy’s wish to study reproduction are unknown, butJoy’s ending made a point to reveal at last why Jean felt just as much part of the Ovum club as her patients. Jean’s decision to finally let Patrick visit her only to learn that her endometriosis was so severe she wouldn’t have been able to benefit from IVF even if it worked for others destroyed all her hopes, but it also finally shone a light on the personal reasons motivating her quest.
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Learning about what truly drove Jean causes the story to make sense in light of the vitriol she had to withstandfrom her mother, her church, and her community. Indeed,Jean was effectively ostracized when it became known she and Bob were working on IVF, with her own mother refusing to welcome her home unless she stopped working in that lab.This made Jean’s motivation heartbreakingly sad, as not only she lost everything to pursue the research, but she also could have never benefited from it, as her condition was too severe for IVF to work and make her pregnant.
Why Jean Returned To The Research After Her Mother’s Death
Gladys May Stopped Short Of Giving Jean Her Blessing To Continue Before Dying
Gladys May seeing the purpose of Jean’s research as wrong caused many conflicts between her and her daughter, but that reached the point of no return when their church learned about what Jean studied.Gladys persisted in keeping Jean at bayeven after she became sick,only welcoming her back after learning that Jean had abandoned the lab in Oldham. Seeing Jean consulting her old notebooks even prompted her to guilt Jean into promising her not to go back to the research once she died, something Jean never agreed to.
Regrets populated her mind, but Gladys didn’t see who Jean had become as a regret, a sin or something to change, all but secretly giving Jean the okay to return to her research after her death.
However, that wasn’t the main reason why Jean returned to Oldham after her mother died. WhileGladys Mayopposed Jean’s research ever since she became involved in it, she alsoconfessed the night before her death how the one thing she couldn’t see faults in now that she was dying was Jean. Regrets populated her mind, but Gladys didn’t see who Jean had become as a regret, a sin or something to change, all but secretly giving Jean the okay to return to her research after her death, which she did at last.
What Happened To Jean, Bob & Patrick In Real Life After Joy
Louise Joy Brown’s Birth Kickstarted The World’s First IVF Clinic At Bourn Hall
TheNetflix true story-based movieJoyended after the birth of Louise Joy Brown, using the real pictures and videos from the medical breakthrough to update audiences on why such a movie was necessary – to celebrate the real team that made IVF possible, and especially Jean, who wasn’t even mentioned on the blue plaque outside Kershaw’s Hospital until the new one unveiled in 2015.The team nonetheless worked tirelessly well after Louise Brown and Alastair MacDonald were bornin 1978 and 1979 respectively.
Joy’s perspective and ending truly hammered down Purdy’s fundamental contribution to IVF, making the point Robert Edwards spent years making to convince the public at large that IVF wouldn’t have been possible without Jean Purdy.
If Edwards continued to campaign for Purdy to get the same credit as him and Steptoe for the development of IVF,the rest of Jean Purdy’s life was devoted to making IVF more accessible(via Bourn Hall). With the NHS refusing to support the service, the team continued in their attempts to fund a private clinic where they could go on working together on IVF.Purdy found a suitable building close to Cambridge where to set up the world’s first IVF clinic, Bourn Hall, which started providing fertility services under Purdy as technical director in 1980.
The Real Meaning Of Joy’s Ending
The Themes Of Resilience & Perseverance Are The Message Of Netflix’s Joy
Joymade clear throughout the film how the odds were evidently stacked against Bob, Jean and Patrick. Jean lost her community because she persisted in wanting to help infertile people conceive, Bob faced a sensationalist press and hostile audiences when he tried to make them aware of the plight of infertile people who wanted to have children, and all three of them faced death threats because of their work.This made Bob, Jean and Patrick’s struggle double, fighting for the development of a process to treat infertility and against those certain that what they did amounted to tampering with nature.
Bob, Jean and Patrick’s return to their research forced them to face what stopped them with a clear head and with the knowledge that their work was too important to be halted by their detractors. Refocusing the attention on the patients reminded them of it,with the successful pregnancy of Lesley Brown and the delivery of Louise Brown essentially acting as a catalystbecause it finally and simultaneously repaid their efforts, made IVF replicable, and meant a more hopeful fate for those wishing to get pregnant, makingJoy’s ending a tribute to their resilience and perseverance after years of failure.
Source:Bourn Hall
Joy
Joy (2024) is a film directed by Ben Taylor, focusing on the challenges faced by a nurse, a scientist, and a surgeon as they confront societal and institutional resistance in their pioneering effort to achieve the world’s first test tube baby, Louise Joy Brown.
