It is not everyday you see the words fertility and comedy in the same sentence. but that is exactly what a new film streaming on Netflix has managed to combine
Private Life premiered on Netflix this October and has been hailed a real look at the intricacies of fertility treatment, with a slice of comedy.
The two-hour drama stars 41-year-old Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) and 47-year-old Richard (Paul Giamatti), two New Yorkers who have spent years concentrating on their careers in the art world.
But when they start looking at having a child in their 40s it is not as easy as they first thought and they start along a road of unpredictable situations they never knew existed.
Director Tamara Jenkins has firsthand knowledge of IVF treatment, she has an eight-year-old daughter via IVF, and included everything she went through on her journey.
The couple have an honest conversation with their fertility doctor who says their best chance of having a child is by using donor eggs, which sends Rachel into a tailspin.
“What am I, a bellhop?” she shouts on the street.
Kathryn told USA Today in an interview earlier this month that it a real shame that the most creative years of a career are also the most fertile year for a woman.
She recalls being called a geriatric mother for having her own child at 35.
She said: “It just is a real bummer that our chief, most creatively fertile, or historically creatively fertile years happen to be aligned with our baby-making years. It sucks.”
As award season approaches, there is talk of nominations for the brutally honest portrayal of what it is like to have fertility treatment.