Scrambled Review
Theatrical Movie Review - Comedy
Fertility and reproduction have received short shrift in film despite being the topic of much conversation worldwide and in the minds of roughly half of the population. Anyone who can get pregnant or who has experienced a pregnancy likely thinks about what fertility means to them. In her new movie Scrambled, Leah McKendrick addresses these concerns with humor and thoughtfulness.
Based on McKendrick's own experience freezing her eggs, Scrambled follows Nellie (Leah McKendrick), a 34-year-old woman who is unattached and enjoying her single life. Nellie is the maid of honor at her best friend Sheila’s (Ego Nwodim) wedding, where Sheila reveals that she is pregnant. As Nellie is contemplating that, her friend Monroe (June Diane Raphael) reminds her that if she wants children, she will need to make a decision soon about her fertility. Nellie decides that she is going to freeze her eggs. The decision is met with skepticism from her father (Clancy Brown) and her brother (Andrew Santino), as well as others in her life. But Nellie knows that what she wants matters and pursues it regardless of the many hurdles she must face.
I loved this movie, and the main reason is that McKendrick doesn’t hold back anything. She shows everything about this process: the cost, the bloating, the needle sticks, the emotional rollercoaster, the bangs. I appreciated that while she didn’t glamorize the process, she didn’t hesitate to show its beauty. So often, we only see the positive or the negative, but here, she gives us a fuller story.
Beyond the primary story of a woman choosing to freeze her eggs, McKendrick tackles issues of surprise pregnancies, pregnancy loss, and a woman just wanting to enjoy her life without fulfilling what many consider a woman's primary directive to procreate. In a film that could have focused on one aspect of reproduction, McKendrick opens it up, showing that the topic affects people in different ways.
Fertility is a tough subject. When I experienced a stillbirth, I knew that I didn’t want to go through another pregnancy. That one was a surprise and wasn’t something I wished to repeat. But despite knowing that, when I went to get an IUD put in, I still had a moment of worry. Was I deficient in some way because I didn’t want to experience another pregnancy at 40? Was I missing something because I didn’t want a child with my second husband after we lost our son? And even though I didn’t want a baby, why was I still kind of jealous of the women I saw who were pregnant at that time? While this movie wasn’t about my experience, I still felt seen because it shows just how complicated emotions can be surrounding the issue of reproduction.
Scrambled is funny and sad and beautiful in a way I didn't expect. Leah McKendrick is fearless in this, and I think this movie will resonate with anyone who has questioned how to respond to invasive questions about childbearing. At a time when questions of reproduction are being systematically stripped from the people who are actually making decisions about how and when they experience pregnancy, it is refreshing to see a woman write, direct, and star in a film that says, “No. You don’t get to control my body. I get to make decisions about if and when I have children.”
