There’s a small moment that really struck me about 14 minutes into the film. 17 year old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) finds out she’s pregnant. In the very next scene, she’s back at home. There, she takes out a little pin, hovers it over her gas stove. She pierces her nose, and when the film cuts to her at work later, she’s wearing a nose stud. It might seem like an odd moment following such a reveal. But what I like about this moment is how it allows Autumn to have one moment where she does something for herself and her own happiness, a feeling that seems to be rarely afforded to her.
It’s small and quiet gestures like this that defines the brilliance of Eliza Hittman’s latest film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always. It’s not the kind of film that feels the need to explain itself, or have the characters make grand speeches or declarations. That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Hittman’s work, who has brought an understated, almost dreamy approach to gritty, character driven stories. I haven’t seen her debut, It Felt Like Love, but I did find Beach Rats to be a fascinating and haunting feature.
In Never Rarely Sometimes Always, we don’t ever find out specifically why Autumn needs the abortion, in the sense that it’s never explicitly stated by her, though given her home life, it’s easy to assume why one wouldn’t want to bring in a child. Regardless, the reason itself doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t even matter that we never meet whoever the father is. The focus is squarely on Autumn’s needs and desires, and the frustrating and complicated journey that she undergoes in order to achieve those needs.
But she’s not alone on her journey. Joining her is her cousin, Skylar (Talia Ryder), who never needed to be pushed or convinced into helping Autumn travel from their small, rural Pennsylvania town to New York City in order to get an abortion. Flanigan and Ryder are great in the film. Not only do you buy their relationship, their love and sense of solidarity for one another is incredibly touching. You believe these two will have each other’s backs through thick and thin, and Skylar in particular goes a long way to help Autumn, which is in one sense inspiring, but also disheartening because ideally neither of these two should even have to go to such extreme lengths.
Some people…guys, frankly, might take issue with the fact that basically all the men in the film are portrayed in varying degrees of scumminess. From Skylar and Autumn’s manager at the grocery store, whose habit of kissing Skylar’s hand when she gives the money from the register makes you want to shrivel up and die, to the stranger Ted (Théodore Pellerin), who does offer quite a bit of help to the girls in New York, but is only motivated to do so because he’s horny for Skylar. However, it’s not like women aren’t shown as toxic in their own way. An early moment at a clinic had a female worker show a conservative, anti-abortion propaganda video as a way to convince Autumn to not consider abortion as an option. It’s simply an honest portrait of the ways all the hostilities women face are heightened when dealing in the subject of teenage pregnancy and the subject of abortion.
The film is also elegantly made. Hittman once again collaborates with Beach Rats cinematographer, Hélène Louvart, utilizing a similar aesthetic. The film’s grainy 16mm look combined with Julia Holter’s dreamy score gives the experience a very fly-on-the-wall approach. You feel like you’re right there besides the characters, seeing things the way they see it, feeling things the way they feel it, and it moves in a way that is propulsive, yet patient.
I really loved Never Really Sometimes Always. I think it’s Eliza Hittman’s most accomplished work yet. Her empathetic eye allows her to tackle a tough subject matter with so much compassion and sensitivity. Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder deliver two wonderful and emotionally resonating performances that leave a mark long after you see the film. It’s easy for a film like this to take a step too far into either melodrama or preachiness, both of which do have their place mind you, but every creative step the filmmakers took here was the right move for this film. Is it the be-all end-all for stories like this? Not necessarily. Not every woman is lucky enough to have insurance like Autumn does, but the story isn’t trying to cover every single possible base, and that’s OK. I feel like I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time, and it’s a dive into a specific experience that I think will prove beneficial for people who think they can’t relate with or disagree with its politics. Because beyond all the brouhaha that might surround a topic like abortion, what we ultimately have with the film is a story that is achingly honest and human.