“Live Your Authentic Life Outside The Norm” Writer/ Director Alexis Jacknow On ‘Clock’

A horror movie about motherhood? It’s what we’ve all been waiting for.

Cheap shots about the woes of parenting aside, writer/director Alexis Jacknow’s jarring film Clock delves into a topic that can be deeply personal and often contentious among both women and men, as well as across generations and cultures. Aren’t all women built for pregnancy and predisposed towards motherhood? Isn’t there something wrong with anyone who doesn’t feel this disposition?

No. An increasing number of women do not opt for parenthood. It might be for career motivations or it might not… that’s her prerogative. But as “advanced” as we might consider ourselves as a society, that’s not always the way she is made to feel. So, this story about a woman who goes to desperate measures to figure out why she doesn’t want children logically lends itself to horror.

Starring Dianna Agron (Ella) and Melora Hardin (Dr. Simmons), Clock follows an accomplished young woman who seemingly has it all. Except for a desire to bear children. Convinced that means she is fundamentally flawed, she secretly enrolls herself in a program run by a doctor who tries to fix “broken” biological clocks. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Alexis Jacknow explained to us why she wrote this story and the respect she wanted to broach the material with.

This is such unique subject matter. Tell me about why you wanted to do this film and if horror was the natural genre choice!

I had made a short film called Clock for Hulu back in 2020, and it was about the moment a woman’s “biological clock” kicks in… when she has to start making decisions and compromises between career and family. They asked me to expand it into a pitch for a feature and I had to really figure out how to make it live for ninety minutes. It then became more of an exploration of a woman who doesn’t want children. And the pressures she faces from society, friends, and culture. She gets to the point where she thinks something’s wrong with her and she becomes desperate to “fix herself”.

It’s an incredibly personal story to me. I identify with quite a bit of it and have had a lot of similar experiences in my life. I think it was right for horror because making the decision to become a mother was the thing that was keeping me up at night. It was tormenting me. And what better place to write horror from?

Besides unique, it’s quite controversial subject matter and a topic prone to diverse opinions. Did you get any kind of pushback, business-wise or personally?

I didn’t get a lot of pushback, but I really tried to include diverse characters and viewpoints. Like Shauna’s character, Ella’s best friend. She’s a gay woman who’s clearly been through IVF, and it’s been a journey for her to get pregnant. I wanted to include her viewpoint because Ella can be a little insensitive. She can talk about pregnancy and motherhood in a way that is bothersome to women who might really want this and be struggling to have it. I wanted to include those women as well to say, “Hey, I see you, and wanting to be a mother is a perfectly wonderful, beautiful, normal, natural want. I support your wants and desires too”. I support what every single woman wants, and so hopefully Shauna’s character brought that perspective as well to balance out Ella’s.

Tell me about Ella’s character and the picture you wanted to present of her.

I wanted to paint Ella as a modern Jewish woman living in a kind of liberal-esque city. She’s got a great job, she’s a wonderful daughter, loving wife, and devoted community member. She’s just really fulfilled and enjoying herself. I wanted to show what it does to somebody when they crack under pressure. I wanted to explore what it was like when you choose to go against living your most authentic life.

In that way, this movie is really for anybody who feels “other” or outside the realm of what society considers “normal.” I think those are the bravest people in the world. Anybody that’s openly living their truth in the face of convention… those people are my heroes. 

Is there a villain in this story?

I think everybody’s the villain! The story is the truth, and they’re all the villains… pretty much everyone is wrong in this.

I love Dr. Simmons because even though she’s probably the “head villain.” She thinks that what she’s doing is a good thing. She’s not this one-dimensional entity, or a mustache-twisting evil. She really believes that she is helping women; that what she’s doing is for good and that the women that come to her do so voluntarily.

Alexis Jacknow

You have a lot of experience in theater directing. What, if anything, have you brought from those experiences into your career as a screenwriter?

I think many scenes in Clock are like a play. So much of it is two people talking in a room or conflict between two characters. Two characters that can ride out a scene together with enough meat on the bones of the dialogue… that’s something that I really appreciate with my theater background. I want to write characters that actors are really hungry to chew on, and I tried to do that in these scenes with Ella and her father or Ella and Dr. Simmons. Give them more depth and a grounded-ness that went beyond horror for horror’s sake.

You also have a lot of experience writing shorts. How did you find the transition to feature films?

Clock was the third feature I’ve written. I have a feature called The Villager and I was also writing Clock in tandem with a script called The Blindings that I’m developing with 21 Laps right now. So it wasn’t my first crack at it, but it was certainly the quickest it’s gone. The time between when I started writing and when I finished was really just a few months.

I love writing features. Because I also direct, I’m thinking on the page visually as well. I see it in my head and then am able to put that down with the characters and with the structure. I feel like I learned so much writing Clock and I can’t wait to take what I learned with me into the next project.

Do you find you are drawn to horror in particular? What do you like and dislike about it?

I never saw myself in the horror landscape. I am a total scaredy cat and I never watched horror growing up. It does not easily appeal to me! But that said, when my two horror shorts were picked up, I thought, “OK, now is the time to start educating yourself in this craft and in this medium.” 

I immediately sold two horror films right after that, Clock and The Blindings. It just seemed to be a place where the industry was hungry for my work and for the female voice right now. I was absolutely going to lean into that. So I just started with this truly terrifying education for myself… I started watching all of the horror that I’ve never seen. It’s funny because a bunch of these reviews of Clock are coming out, comparing it to this or that and I’m like, “Gosh, I’ve never even seen that movie, I have to go watch it.”

But I’ve come to really appreciate it as a medium. I’ve come to really appreciate the craft of horror. It is not easy and you have a very discerning audience with the genre fans. But I think it’s one of the greatest ways you can get out social messaging right now, because I guarantee you, if I had written a small indie drama about female body economy, it would have never been made. But like they say in The Princess Bride, “The chocolate coating makes it go down easier.” If you hide the vegetables, people are more likely to sit up and pay attention. They’re more likely to watch because there’s entertainment value along with the messaging.

What would you say is Clock’s message?

Clock is not a movie saying women shouldn’t have children. Neither is it a movie saying women should have children. It’s a movie saying we should support women no matter what they choose, with an open heart and open arms. Frankly, we should support everyone in the place that they choose. Butt out and mind our own business when it comes to the people out there who are trying to live an authentic life outside of the social norms. Because you only get one go-around. It’s going to take a lot of bravery and courage, but I see you and I support you and you’re doing it right.

by Ramona Zacharias

Movie aficionado, television devotee, music disciple, world traveller. Based in Toronto, Canada.

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