‘Private Life’ puts infertility in focus
For Netflix series, director Tamara Jenkins gets personal on timely topic
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Get comfortable, because this is about to get real.
Kathryn Hahn is ready; the actress walks out to join director Tamara Jenkins on a sunny hotel balcony, having swapped her formal attire for denim overalls. She sticks out a foot to show off a fuzzy black slide. “I’m totally turning into ‘The Golden Girls,’ ” Hahn grins. “Everything I buy now I’m like, ‘I’m going to wear this for the next 30 years.’ ”
They’re putting fertility under the microscope in “Private Life,” a comedic drama now streaming on Netflix that offers an intimate view into the lives of accomplished writer Rachel (played by Hahn) and theater director turned small-batch pickle producer Richard (Paul Giamatti), who are trying to have a baby.
Rachel is 41 and Richard is 47; the bohemian New Yorkers have spent much of their adult lives fleshing out careers in the arts. Now they’re focusing on creating a family – and it’s wrenching in ways they couldn’t have predicted.
“People always say, ‘Oh, yeah, they did artificial insemination,’ ” says Jenkins (“Slums of Beverly Hills”), affecting a flippant tone. “But they don’t know
“The years that you’re supposed to be building your career are the years that you’re supposed to be (having) babies. That’s the tyranny of the female condition.”
Tamara Jenkins Director
what it means, what the grueling process of it is. It’s not cute.”
And so Jenkins, whose 8-year-old daughter was born via IVF, mined her own history for “Private Life,” determined to make her film as honest a portrayal of the process as it gets.
Including the hormone-filled shots women self-inject into their stomachs at home every night.
“You know you mix the drugs (yourself )?” Jenkins asks. “Drunk people (have sex) and have babies all the time. They’re not having to sit there and, like, measure the perfect milligram. It’s like you have to be a science major to get the stuff into the syringe.” (Seriously, Google “How to mix and inject Menopur.”)
The maze of fertility, “Private Life” shows, often can be death by a thousand cuts. After being told she’d have better odds using a younger egg – at least she’d be able to carry the child! – Rachel loses it. “What am I, a bellhop?” she shouts on the street.
More people are having children later in life, says Hahn, 45, and the topic needs to be confronted without shame. The actress, who has two children with her husband, actor Ethan Sandler, got pregnant at 35 only to be called “a geriatric mother.”
“It just is a real bummer that our chief, most creatively fertile or historically creatively fertile years happen to be aligned with our babymaking years. It sucks,” says Hahn, who began her career in such TV series as “Crossing Jordan” and supporting film roles (“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”). Her career has since exploded to critical acclaim, with recent work including her Emmy-nominated role on “Transparent” and lead turn in the series “I Love Dick.”
“The years that you’re supposed to be building your career are the years that you’re supposed to be (having) babies,” Jenkins says. “That’s the tyranny of the female condition.”
In the film, Rachel is all too aware. She and Richard have decided to take an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach to making their dreams come true, simultaneously attempting IVF and adoption while contemplating asking Richard’s college-age stepniece to donate her eggs.
Could the low-budget film’s leveling honesty send it to the Oscars? With a 92 percent positive Rotten Tomatoes score (The New York Times calls it “perfect”), “Netflix is making a ferocious effort to be a big Oscar player and that helps a little gem like ‘Private Life,’ ” says Tom O’Neil, founder of the awards site GoldDerby.com.
Jenkins was last nominated for best original screenplay for her similarly personal 2007 film “The Savages,” and Hahn could a player for best actress, says O’Neil, though it’s “a crowded category” this year. “Netflix will have to push very hard.”
What’s not hard? Small kindnesses. They’re Hahn’s go-to whenever approaching friends who may be quietly struggling with fertility.
“I’m a hugger. I just like silent hugs. Offers of walks. Gifts of massages,” she says. “Because it is so deep and personal. There are so many little joys and mournings that I just want to be available for whatever those are.”