Tamara Jenkins: "It was one of the earliest things I scribbled out. I found a notebook that had a note in it from 2008, and it had a few different little scribbles and one of them had to do with a woman’s haunch, and the man sort of appearing over, almost like a sun [rising] or something. And then because it was a bedroom scene, and [he says] 'Roll over,' and 'Are you ready,' you're like ‘Oh my god, they’re gonna do some experimental sex thing they’ve never done before.' And then obviously, instead of having it be sexual it’s medical, and he pulls out the syringe. It’s taking something that’s very intimate, that’s private, that usually happens under your sheets, and it gets turned into this medical thing that’s incredibly alienating in terms of your relationships, your body. And of course, it’s all taking place in the bed, which is where you’d usually do other things besides administer hormone injections."<doc-sep>Desperate, they try everything — in vitro fertilization, adoption, finding a donor egg — and Jenkins shows how their lives are re-ordered around this quest, both physically and emotionally. Jenkins finds plenty of funny insights into the process (“It’s like an EBay for ova,” Rachel mutters while browsing a website for egg donors). But she doesn’t shy away from the stress and the heartbreak of the process, as Richard and Rachel try and fail and keep soldiering on, hoping against hope. Their chatty doctor (Denis O’Hare) tries to buck up their spirits, telling them, “All it takes is one good egg.” But the flip side to that encouragement feels like a criticism — how come they can’t find one good egg? The couple feels their intimate lives have become subject to public scrutiny, not only from doctors but from their family and friends, who question why they continue trying. Hahn is a deservedly busy character actor, and she finally gets a knockout lead role, embodying all of Rachel’s frustration and prickly vulnerability. And this is Giamatti’s best role since “Sideways,” playing a devoted husband who is being slowly wrung out by the humiliating, protracted process. Jenkins’ screenplay is so sharp and honest that we feel no guarantee that there’ll be a happy ending for this couple, but we’re so emotionally invested in their struggle that we stick with them to the end.<doc-sep>It should not be this way. We should not have to wait a decade for a new Tamara Jenkins movie. We should be treated to her urbane, profoundly intimate, and deeply funny worldview more often than we encounter, say, the census or a global recession. Woody Allen has made twelve films since Jenkins’ last movie; her searingly funny The Savages, came out in 2007. That alone is grave injustice for all film lovers, especially those who appreciate stories about over-educated New Yorkers writing books and wrestling with their neurosis, a milieu Jenkins mines for comedy perhaps even better than Allen did in his prime. Fittingly, Jenkins’ latest is about the passage of time, and the fertility industry that thrives on the idea that if we spend enough money on drugs and treatments we can somehow deny it. Which is to say, Private Life is as an “IVF comedy”—and if you or someone you know has ever gone through that soul and bank account draining process, I know that descriptor will sound as oxymoronic as “jumbo shrimp.” But finding comedy when people are at their most vulnerable is precisely the vein from which Jenkins (whose 1998 film The Slums of Beverly Hills has become something of a cult classic) strikes cinematic gold. Subscribe to Observer’s Entertainment Newsletter For Richard and Rachel (the inspired pairing of Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn), their Alphabet City, rent-controlled bohemia wears a bit uneasy now that they are careening towards their 50s—kind of like that leather jacket Richard still insists on sporting. After spending their prime years devoted to creative endeavors—she’s a novelist trapped in the women’s fiction ghetto and he’s a one-time experimental theater director turned artisan pickle maker—they have taken a scorched earth policy to becoming parents. In addition to borrowing money to pay for the increasingly complex in vitro fertilization procedures, they are looking into adoption and meeting with perspective birth mothers who are as likely to ghost them as Tinder matches. The best jokes come from the specificity of their experience. Just before inseminating her, her IVF doctor (the always good Denis O’Hare) asks Rachel, “Do you like prog rock?” When she has blood drawn between treatments on Halloween, the nurse is wearing devil horns. As things get particularly dicey, Richard bellows, “Why do I feel like I am in a Wendy Wasserstein play?” PRIVATE LIFE ★★★1/2 (3.5/4 stars) Directed by: Tamara Jenkins Written by: Tamara Jenkins Starring: Kathryn Hahn, Paul Giamatti, Kayli Carter, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Desmin Borges and Denis O’Hare Running time: 132 mins. They get a bit of a Hail Mary in the form of Sadie (Kayli Carter, a New York stage actor currently starring in the Netflix series Godless), their step-niece, an aspiring writer who can’t seem to finish up her time as a Bard undergraduate with an actual degree. Together they devise a plan to have Richard artificially inseminate one of Sadie’s eggs that Rachel will carry to term. (“What does that make me, the bellhop?” says Rachel.) The scheme does not go over well with Sadie’s judgmental mother, played by a brilliantly cast Molly Shannon. The film gets a lot of mileage out of the quotidian parts of New York City life, from the Wild Nova at Russ and Daughters to opposite side of the street parking. As a result, it’s a little long and leisurely. However, fueled by Rachel and Richard’s baby mania, it never drags. Given the topic, the film is often cringeworthy, and it can be an especially challenging (though perhaps cathartic) watch if you’ve experienced IVF firsthand. Which brings us to the biggest problem with Private Life. This is a movie that should be holding you in its sweaty palm for its whole two hours, not letting you off the hook by allowing you to pause it to fold laundry or answer email. But as a Netflix release, with a very, very limited number of cinemas holding showings (only a single theater in L.A.), those of us who didn’t catch it at a film festival will most certainly be watching it at home and not on the big screen. That’s not only a disservice to Tamara Jenkins and her wonderful characters, but also to pretty much everyone who loves movies.<doc-sep>The filmmaker behind the new Netflix drama tells IndieWire how she worked to make her audience feels like they live in New York (complete with becoming emotionally undone in public). When Tamara Jenkins was first writing “Private Life,” her new Netflix film about a couple (Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti) trying to get pregnant through IVF (in-vitro fertilization), it was called “The Middle Ages.” It’s a title she dropped after seeing the New York Times had a new column using the same name. Feeling forced to abandon the title ended up being a blessing, as it made room for another theme that had been bubbling to the surface during the course of Jenkins’ writing. “When people conceive a child, it’s private,” Jenkins said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “You’re under blankets. It’s like invisible to the outside world. It’s dark. You’re doing this very private act but, as soon as there’s a problem with it, everything that is usually private becomes a conversation piece.” Read More: ‘Private Life’ Review: Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn Are Brilliant in Tamara Jenkins’ Crushingly Honest Fertility Epic As Jenkins noted, those who decide to adopt children end up having their home inspected and are fingerprinted as a matter of course. If there’s difficulty getting pregnant, one is forced to sit and listen as a group of doctors discuss your genitals. Meanwhile, the topic of IVF seems to illicit acquaintances to share their unfiltered thoughts. “Then there’s a whole other layer of people’s opinions about it,” said Jenkins. “Sort of like in the movie, even if there’s just a small suggestion of IVF: ‘Oh my god. Why don’t they just adopt?’ Like with the word ‘just’ adopt, as if that’s so easy, but then there’s a very primal reaction that people have about it.” Jojo Whilden / Netflix For Jenkins, who has had her own personal experiences with IVF, allowing the audience to feel what it was like for such a private matter to become publicly scrutinized became a guiding principle. Beyond structuring the narrative in a way where this type of dialogue played a key role, it also factored into how and where she staged the action. “You’re in these spaces, those waiting rooms, where everyone knows why they’re there,” said Jenkins. “Everyone knows you’re there because there’s something not working and it’s private, but it’s a very public space.” In “Private Life,” Jenkins utilizes a small, crowded waiting room with a composition that emphasizes the cramped feel. Hahn and Giamatti’s performances emphasize how conscientious they are of being on stage. It’s a feeling that is underlined by the use of sound. “It’s this weird wide shot that drags on for a while, it’s very uncomfortable and the sound editor put in all this sound of people and I was like, ‘No, no, no, no,'” said Jenkins. “I just wanted to get the sound of those spaces right because people are not chatty. It’s like the sound of a magazine page turning, a murmur between a couple. It just has a really weird kind of hermetic feeling. It’s kind of silent, but people are kind of looking at each other, but they’re not supposed to be. It’s a very unusual soundscape.” In “Private Life,” Hahn and Giamatti’s characters, Rachel and Richard, often experience setbacks at these various doctors appointments, and then have to grapple with an ensuing wave of emotions while out on the street. Seacia Pavao / Netflix “They’re in such a fragile state and they’re kind of spit out onto a public street,” said Jenkins. “To go from having some doctor between your legs to having cars driving by like [Jenkins mimics cars screeching].” In one street scene, Rachel and Richard fight over how far they are willing to go to get pregnant. It’s one of Jenkins’ favorite scenes, reciting the dialogue from memory: “They’re discussing the donor egg thing and she says, ‘I thought we were going to draw the line at science fiction’ and he says, ‘Well, it’s actually not science fiction, they do it with farm animals all the time.’ ‘Well, I’m not a goat, okay? Why don’t you go fuck her?,'” Jenkins recalled. “That whole thing is her becoming really emotionally undone. That kind of very intense private conversation. I guess if it’s a movie that took place in L.A, they’d be having that conversation in their car or the parking lot. It’s so New York.” Scenes like this went over extremely well with the New York Film Festival crowd last week, but Jenkins knows audiences from all over can understand how the city defines these characters. The couple lives in the East Village, a neighborhood it feels like they’ve aged beyond. As Richard says at one point, “I just don’t want to find myself at a block association meeting trying to prevent the opening of a new bar.” There’s an aspect of their relationship to the city that speaks to their age, economic class, and how they think of themselves that plays a big role in their story of struggling to have a child. “This kind of artist class in New York is very specific and it would look different if it was in a different city,” said Jenkins. “So the locations, I was kind of a lunatic about it. What happens in movies is things are done for convenience or because somebody thinks it’s pretty. They’ll be like, ‘Oh, there’s this great restaurant in Brooklyn and blah blah blah.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, but that’s Brooklyn. That’s not going to look right, it’s going to feel different and you’re just putting me there because it’s pretty. I don’t care if it’s pretty, I want it to be right. '” “Private Life” opened in select theaters and Netflix on October 5. 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How A 'By Any Means Necessary' Quest For A Child Inspired Netflix's 'Private Life' Enlarge this image toggle caption Jojo Whilden/Netflix Jojo Whilden/Netflix Writer and director Tamara Jenkins was in her early 40s and struggling with infertility when she and her husband began what she calls a "by any means necessary" campaign to have a child. It was an emotionally draining time. They looked into international adoption and also began in vitro fertilization treatment. A friend in whom Jenkins confided encouraged her to write about her experiences, but Jenkins demurred. "I was horrified and just repulsed," she says. "I would never write about this stuff." It was only after a successful IVF cycle and the birth of her daughter that Jenkins began reconsidering. At some point, she says, it began to seem "emotionally legal" to fictionalize her own story. Jenkins began working on what she calls a "buddy movie" about a couple, also in their 40s and living in New York City, who are desperate to have a child. Private Life, which begins streaming on Netflix and playing in select theaters on Friday, stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti. "The two of them are set off on this caper with the intention of having a baby, and they're both responding to it in their independent ways," Jenkins says. "It was important to me that it was a mutual crisis — that it wasn't just her problem. They're both falling apart. You know, they're hitting up against the limitations of being a human being simultaneously." Interview Highlights On how Kathryn Hahn's character blames second-wave feminism for her infertility It's such a demented thing to do, but I sort of understand what she's saying. ... I get why she feels betrayed by some notion of "be independent and pursue your career," and it's not like Gloria Steinem ever said that, exactly. She really can't be blamed, but I know what Kathryn's character is talking about, some sense of, like, license to pursue the other part of your life — not the wife part, not the mother part, but the other part. And then suddenly she feels like the rug has been pulled out from under her and this thing that she delayed is now possibly not available to her. On why Jenkins waited until her 40s to have a child Enlarge this image toggle caption Jojo Whilden/Netflix Jojo Whilden/Netflix Marriage and having babies didn't look so good from my childhood's point of view, so maybe I wasn't rushing to do it anyway. But that combined with pursuing a career and being a writer — I was a performance artist and then I was an actor ... then I decided to go to graduate school and film and then trying to make films — and it was all very consuming and not conducive to having a kid. I didn't have the money, for one, and I lived by the skin of my teeth and didn't have the health insurance and ... I wasn't doing anything that seemed particularly stable. On being an older parent in New York City One thing about New York is that there are a lot of older parents. ... Also, there's a lot of older dads. There's a lot of second marriages, so suddenly you feel young in terms of the men. But I mean it's certainly something you notice, but something about New York blurs that a little bit. If I was in the Midwest maybe it would seem a little different. But I guess maybe [there are more older parents] because people moved to New York because of their careers. And I think that I'm not the only person that delayed having children in this town. I mean, jeez, go to those fertility clinics. They're packed. On her unconventional childhood, in which her older brother became her legal guardian Our family was super fractured. We lived with our father, then we lived with our mother a little bit, then we moved to Cambridge [Mass.] and my big brother became my legal guardian. ... My brother was getting his Ph.D. and me and my little brother lived in this Harvard housing, and we lived on food stamps and student loans that my brother took out. Our lives improved and we became much better students at school, which was ironic because of course everybody from the outside thought, "Oh, they don't have any parents. It must be wild over there." But we were the opposite.