"Clock" an absorbing nightmare for childless adults

Clock (2023)

Pregnancy Horror has been on an incline lately, what with “False Positive,” “Baby Ruby,” and now “Clock.” Writer-director Alexis Jacknow makes a confident feature debut, expanding her short film of the same name and mining psychological horror out of baby fever and the peer pressure to start a family. As an anxiety-ridden psychological horror drama, “Clock” absorbs, unsettles, and gnaws just as it should.

Ella Patel (Dianna Agron) has a full life as a successful interior designer with a doctor husband, Aidan (Jay Ali), and it’s without having children. She’s 37—that’s geriatric, according to her gynecologist—but she never actually wanted to have children. As she keeps feeling pressured by her pregnant best friend and others who have had children, Ella decides to go behind her husband’s back. On her way to complete a job, she heads to a facility instead. There, Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (a likably trustworthy Melora Hardin) is the mastermind behind a cutting-edge clinical study to jumpstart Ella’s biological clock. Ella begins experiencing, how should we say, side effects. 

As a pure exercise in mounting dread, “Clock” is expertly shot and edited. A tall, dark woman sprung to life from one of Dr. Simmons’ Rorschach-like tests is chilling nightmare stuff, and there’s some creepy business with eggs. The film also works as a character study about a woman nearing 40 with no childbearing desire. Excelling with darker material when given the opportunity, Dianna Agron is terrific as Ella, making her resistance and her would-be childbearing journey relatable, and her mental unraveling complex and devastatingly human. Ella’s Jewish ancestry becomes part of the pressure as well, coming from her kvetching father (a touching Saul Rubinek), who makes it known that it’s her obligation to continue their family lineage and honor the lives lost in the Holocaust. Always willing to go to weird and disturbing places but also concluding on a melancholy note that trusts you’ve paid attention, “Clock” pushes hard.

Grade: B

20th Digital Studio is releasing “Clock” (91 min.) on Hulu April 28, 2023.