Never Rarely Sometimes Always is such a small, wonderful film that might have found its audience had it had a normal theatrical run last year, but Focus purchased it out of Sundance and sent it to streaming after three days in theaters right at the start of the pandemic, so it seems to have escaped a lot of notice. It’s a gem of a movie that takes an unsparing look at abortion and just how difficult the United States makes it for women to exercise this most basic form of autonomy over their own bodies. (You can watch it on HBO Max or via HBO on amazon.)
Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is a 17-year-old living in a rural town in northern Pennsylvania who suspects she might be pregnant, so she goes to a ‘pregnancy crisis center,’ one of those fake clinics where they try to prevent pregnant women from making rational choices, often by lying to them. Autumn decides she wants to get an abortion, so her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) steals some money from the grocery store where they work – for a truly creepy manager – and they hop a bus to New York City, where parental consent isn’t required as it is in the backwater where they live. Once they arrive, however, they realize that the procedure won’t be as quick or simple as they’d been led to believe, and they have to make some unpleasant choices to stay in the city and let Autumn get a proper abortion.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always does so much right with this story, but foremost among them is how granular it gets throughout the process. There’s an attention to detail here that puts you deeply into the story in a way that tries to express the difficulty, stress, and sheer exasperation that Autumn faces, even though she’s sure about her decision. The scenes at the pregnancy crisis center, or her intake interview at Planned Parenthood in New York, or as she and Skylar end up trying to pass the night at the Port Authority and riding the subways all give more time to the minutiae of the moment, passing in something more like real time, giving it a documentary/cinema verité feel.
There are also some small but clearly conscious choices on the part of director/screenwriter Eliza Hittman that drive home Autumn’s anguish and isolation. The intake interview – the best scene in the film, and the scene that gives the movie its title – has the camera focused exclusively on Autumn, even when the kind woman interviewing her is doing most of the talking. Autumn and Skylar are together for long periods where they don’t speak as the camera follows them around Manhattan, or just shows us the two of them trying to sleep in the station, emphasizing that Autumn can simultaneously be alone and with her cousin. If Hittman used any artificial lighting, it wasn’t evident; the whole film has a tinge of grey to it, and the indoor scenes all look like they’re lit solely by the cold fluorescent lights ubiquitous in offices and other public spaces. The script is clearly on the side of a woman’s right to choose, and expresses that view through an intensely realistic look at the process from positive test to the abortion itself, undermining any argument that this is something women do cavalierly while showing just how many obstacles our supposedly free country throws in their way.
Flanigan made their film debut in NRSA, and earned a slew of honors for their performance here, winning Best Actress from Boston and New York critics circles. The film depends so much on Flanigan that you can’t understate the importance of her work, which is superb – she’s entirely believable and disappears into this role, owning that scene in the PP intake interview that, for me, defined this film. It can’t work without a knockout performance, but they deliver one, and you can add Flanigan to the list of actresses who I think deserved an Oscar nomination over Andra Day (who did her best with a badly written role) this year. I’d also put this movie in my top ten for 2020 right now, with maybe a half-dozen possible contenders for that still on my to-watch list, including Minari, The Father, and First Cow. It’s great, and manages to educate without becoming didactic, while telling an important, compelling story.
This movie was so uncomfortable. It’s just awfulness the entire time. I also appreciate that we get no background as to why she is in that predicament other than the best scene. And her cousin is a great friend
It walks several thin lines at once and does it very well. At first I thought the “all men are creeps” angle was too heavy-handed, but it served to condition the atmosphere for the encounter on the bus to NY — another creep, or someone who might be of help? Also, it is fairly strongly implied early on who Autumn’s sexual partner was, and then the intake interview alternately bolsters and then casts subtle doubt on this reading. This keeps her story in the here-and-now, not allowing the viewer the comfort of passing judgment based on well-worn battle lines in the ongoing debate. Really a brilliant movie, and as well-acted as you say.
Not trying to troll, but I find this statement, “just how difficult the United States makes it for women to exercise this most basic form of autonomy over their own bodies” to be, frankly, dumb. Whatever you think about abortion, is it really a more basic form of autonomy over one’s body than say clothing it, choosing who is allowed to engage it physically, or, to be absurd, protect it from a fire. It’s easy to see enemies and misogynists everywhere when you live in this kind of hyperbolic world. I just don’t find that framing productive.
I have heard the movie is good. I hope to see it at some point.
Frank, don’t tell me you’re “not trying to troll” and then call my comment “dumb” and “hyperbolic.” It’s the “no offense but…” construction and it doesn’t do anything to mitigate what comes afterwards.
1) We have different definitions of trolling, but point taken. Apologies for my aggressive word choice of “dumb.”
2) I remain eager to hear how you square abortion as a women’s “most basic form of autonomy over their own bodies” when it’s not even an applicable form of autonomy for half of the women in America at any given time (speaking to those women outside of child-bearing age). It strikes me that there must be, pretty obviously, something more basic, and I think an honest ordering of things is a fair expectation to place on a writer whose brand of political commentary is hyper-rationalism. So, contrition where noted, but otherwise I stand by my assertion that your off-handed claim is hyperbolic, lacking rational persuasion (to tone the language down), and ultimately unproductive.
3) Enjoyed the chat today. Thank you.
I hope never in my life to encounter a bigger (redacted – KL) than you.
Whether a woman has the right to decline to use her uterus for up to nine months to grow a fetus she may not wish to have is as basic as it gets. You compared it to a woman’s right to choose her own clothes, which I can’t possibly see as a good-faith example. Clothes don’t change your body’s shape, size, hormones, or complexion. Women can experience short- and long-term aftereffects from just one pregnancy. It may increase her risk of breast cancer in the first few years after the pregnancy. And women die in pregnancy, even in the United States; I have one friend whose wife died in childbirth, and a close relative of mine survived 50/50 odds (in the doctor’s words afterwards) due to a condition known as placentia previa. The right to choose whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy can fundamentally alter who you are as a person. Your clothes do not do that. No one dies because someone else told them what shirt to wear.