Movie review by Greg Carlson
Eliza Hittman’s Sundance favorite “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which played in theaters for just three days before Focus Features pulled the film amidst the widespread and unprecedented coronavirus-related closures, will be made available on demand beginning April 3. According to Anne Thompson, the movie will cost $19.99 to rent for a 48 hour period and will be carried on several platforms. As distributors and consumers navigate the unexpected changes brought about by stay-at-home measures, social distancing, and self-quarantine, the industry will adjust — at least for the time being — to the idea of premium video on demand rather than a traditional rollout in movie theaters.
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” which received a Sundance Special Jury Award for Neo-Realism before going on to claim the Silver Bear at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, tells the story of a pregnant Pennsylvania teenager who travels with her cousin to New York City to get an abortion. Hittman’s third feature continues to demonstrate the talents, sensibilities, and cinematic evolution of a first-rate writer-director, following the closely-observed and emotionally-charged “It Felt Like Love” (2013) and “Beach Rats” (2017) — both of which premiered at Sundance.
A stunning debut performance by Sidney Flanigan, who anchors the movie as the pregnant Autumn, keeps with Hittman’s tradition of using young actors who convey achingly recognizable humanity. We spend the movie in close proximity to Autumn, whose determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable setbacks and challenges aligns with Hittman’s own surgical restraint and withheld judgements regarding her protagonist’s actions. For reasons that Hittman allows the audience to infer from the behavior of the people depicted in the expository scenes, self-reliance is the first, best, and only option as Autumn sees it. But she does take cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) along on her journey, and the relationship of the two develops as one of the movie’s most rewarding components.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the devastating consequences anticipated by Autumn, “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is as powerful a coming-of-age story as any in recent memory. Hittman is unfailingly good at expressing the uncertainties of the liminal passages facing the two young women. Autumn is naive not only to the speed and volume of NYC, but also to the labyrinth of abortion services, rules, and regulations. The cousins are also caught right on the very edge between childhood and adulthood, innocence and experience. Hittman effectively illustrates the latter via the introduction of Jasper (Theodore Pellerin), a pushy, pesky, and persistent admirer of Skylar. The unsettling mood that accompanies his presence underscores the extent to which both Skylar and Autumn are vulnerable.
Throughout the course of the film, Autumn meets with a series of adults, and these figures exist along the entire spectrum of pro- and anti-choice (one such scene, among the very best of the year, gives the movie its title). Hittman does not hide her own sympathies, and all of these counselors, caretakers, and practitioners act from deep personal investment and firmly-held moral and ethical orientations. In other words, all intend to do what they think is right, or best, for Autumn and others like her. Hittman’s depictions of these interactions, which were constructed from the director’s own deep research, remain wholly devoted to the personal experience of Autumn, whose face and voice reveal the deepest and most empathetic notes, again and again.