REVIEW: Clock [2023]

Rating: TV-MA | Runtime: 91 minutes
Release Date: April 28th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Hulu
Director(s): Alexis Jacknow
Writer(s): Alexis Jacknow

Some people become more defiant when told by countless people that they “must” do something. Others begin to wonder if perhaps they’ve been the ones who were wrong for not wanting to comply. Reducing what occurs on-screen in Alexis Jacknow’s Clock to a simple either/or scenario isn’t necessarily doing its psychological complexity justice, but I think it can get you to start understanding the trauma that results. Because when something like pregnancy is suddenly rendered with life-or-death connotations bolstered by the added societal pressure of “normalcy” and generational pressure of survival, it cannot be easily reversed. If Ella Patel (Dianna Agron) is “wrong” for not wanting to bring a child into a world destroying itself or ruin an already full life, being “right” isn’t just a matter of changing perspective. It’s about repressing your very identity to conform.

What can that look like? Psychosis. Some of it is overt like the specter of a tall woman in black that’s found to be ingrained inside Ella’s DNA. Some of it is imperceptible—the way Jacknow transforms the screen after a climactic moment will have you wondering how you missed just how different the image had become. The fertility specialist Ella sees (Melora Hardin’s Dr. Elizabeth Simmons) is quite literally rewiring her brain under the belief that all women have a biological clock and not feeling it is merely a hormonal and/or psychological imbalance. In order to flip that switch, she must force her patients to confront their fears. In so doing, however, she also gives those fears form. No longer dormant metaphorical notions woven into her very psyche, the tall woman, clock, and spiders must manifest to survive. You cannot simply erase such powerful markers.

It’s a fascinating character study augmented by a father (Saul Rubinek) whose own biological clock is ticking with the idea that everything his Holocaust surviving relatives did to keep their family tree alive will soon be for naught. Then there’s the understanding husband (Jay Ali) who Ella can’t help but think is sacrificing his own dream for family to let her remain childless. And her pregnant best friend (Grace Porter) reminding her of what society demands out of its women: maternal bliss. Ella is willing to derail her success to satisfy them all, though—to give her father grandchildren, her husband a child, and her friend a partner in motherhood. But doing so means ignoring who she is on a fundamental level. Is wanting to be a mother worth such a transformation? How relentless will the push back be from all that she suppresses to achieve it?

The final reveals are a bit too on-the-nose considering how nuanced so much of Clock proves in the lead-up to them, but I won’t pretend they aren’t effective in their job to bring the underlying symbolism into the real world. Agron is very good in the lead role, constantly bombarded with sensory motifs and disturbing actions born from this idea that motherhood must be the end-all be-all of Ella’s existence. Don’t therefore wonder about certain strange behavior like watching her put a carton of eggs into the freezer. It’s not a mistake. Jacknow doesn’t put anything on-screen without purpose and trusting that fact allows the off-kilter atmosphere to hit harder because we aren’t worrying about incongruities. This is the story of a woman surrounded by fanatics attempting to indoctrinate her against her will. Because despite volunteering, the violence that ensues proves she does not consent.