Movie Review: Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Never Rarely Sometimes Always **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Eliza Hittman.

Written by: Eliza Hittman.

Starring: Sidney Flanigan (Autumn), Talia Ryder (Skylar), Théodore Pellerin (Jasper), Ryan Eggold (Ted), Sharon Van Etten (Mother).

 

It is clear from the opening scenes of Eliza Hittman’s extraordinary Never Rarely Sometimes Always that the protagonist, Autumn, is going through some stuff. We first see her at the high school talent show – dolled up like a 1950s star, strumming a guitar, singing a painful and personal song – and being heckled for it. Her stepdad isn’t that supportive of her – he needles her with insults, that she tries to ignore, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of a response, but the digs hurt. Her mother just sits in between, trying to play peacemaker – but thinks her job is done if they aren’t screaming at each other. And all of this is before Autumn finds out she is pregnant.

 

Autumn is played in a brilliant performance by newcomer Sidney Flanigan – which is key to Hittman’s film working at all. Hittman’s strategy is basically never to explain anything – she sits back, allows the camera to rest on Flanigan’s face, and let that face do the storytelling. Autumn never really cracks – never really lets us inside – because for the most part, she is in this by herself. When she takes the test – at the center – a chipper nurse says things that betray her thoughts on the pro-life, pro-choice divide – talking about the beautiful baby, the wonderful sound of the heartbeat, and showing Autumn a pro-life propaganda video when it becomes clear Autumn is leaning that way. In fact, Autumn is doing more than lean that way – her mind is immediately made up. She wants an abortion. But she lives in rural Pennsylvania – a state that requires parental consent for a minor to have an abortion, and that’s not a conversation she wants to have. A few pathetic attempts at a self-abortion later, she decides what she has to do. Along with her cousin – Skylar (Talia Ryder, in another wonderful, subtle performance) – they take the bus to New York City. It should be easy – she can have the abortion there, Skylar can help out, and it will be okay. But, of course, it isn’t that easy.

 

American films don’t like to talk about abortion – not really. In fact, very few films do. This film will remind some of Cristian Pungiu’s wonderful 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days from Romania – which detailed the hoops you had to jump through to get an abortion behind the Iron Curtain. Hittman has said that film inspired this one – in part, because of some the things that film didn’t do, or didn’t address. American specific things. What both films do is walk you through the process, step-by-step, and how invasive it is – how traumatic. The procedure in America is, of course, legal – and so it should be something that you can get easily. But, of course, it isn’t.

 

Hittman’s film follows these two young women through New York over the course of a few days. There are hiccups, and procedures to follow, which make them stay longer than they planned on – longer than they have money to. They don’t do much in those days – they ride the subway, hang out at the bus station, go to the various appointments. It is at one of those appoints that Hittman and Flanigan deliver their tour-de-force – a verbal questionnaire that Autumn has to answer, one painful question at a time, where the camera never breaks away from Flanigan’s face. It’s this scene that gives the film its name, and it’s this scene that is the one that will sear itself into your brain – with its pain, as Autumn, for a few brief moments, cracks just a little – and we see how much pain she is in.

 

Hittman has been a promising director for a while now – with films like It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats. This one delivers on all that promise and then some. It is one of the great American indies in recent years – necessary and important, but one that never announces its importance, or insists on it – it doesn’t preach to the converted, nor try and change your mind. It is an extraordinary act of empathy – and one of the best films you will see this year.

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