SUNDANCE 2020 - Never Rarely Sometimes Always
BBC FILMSEliza Hittman is no stranger to the topics of gender and sexuality. With her latest film, which was premiered at this year’s Sundance to critical acclaim, the director seems to build on the minutiae of observational truths in conjunction with the grainy, gritty realism she’s mostly known for. Her previous two features, It Felt Like Love and Beach Rats, are aptly attuned to the ways in which the pressures of conformity, sexuality and gender are violently internalized and brought upon adolescence.
The premise of Never Rarely Sometimes Always is simple: 17-year-old Autumn faces an unexpected problem, she is ten weeks pregnant. Unable to get an abortion without parental consent in her home state, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) convinces her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) to travel with her to New York City so she can undergo the procedure without her parents finding out. It is unfair to label Eliza Hittman’s latest as an "abortion drama" when the film actually cuts close to the bone, delivering an insightful examination on female companionship and the way women are treated and marginalized, especially when it comes to their own autonomy. Throughout the journey, Hittman greatly emphasizes the contrasts between the two worlds and the challenges these two girls have to face along the way, from searching for train routes to encountering contemptible men. The juxtaposition of Autumn’s conservative upbringing in small-town Pennsylvania with the hustle-bustle of Manhattan is vividly rendered but no less terrifying in its implications.
Everything about the film, from the aesthetic choice to way the characters are presented, is deliberately unadorned. The procedural visual quality – captured in Helene Louvart’s grainy 16mm cinematography – is strikingly intimate and nostalgic, resolutely positioning itself between a modern statement and a timeless critique. Or, to put it in the director’s own words, this precise docu-realism approach evokes a sense of being “trapped in time.” Similar to Beach Rats, and It Felt Like Love, Hittman offers no back story to her protagonists; instead, she gives the audience everything they need to know about these teenagers through subtle gestures and visual cues. Hittman knows too well that she should never do anything to put herself ahead of her characters. She never questions them about their actions or moralities. She understands their desire to be heard, not judged, and thus shows it through her characters’ quiet façades, that nonetheless simmered with internalized tension. Flanigan’s subdued performance is a revelation. She doesn’t say much but is still able to convey everything single ounce of emotion through her eyes with a sense of aloofness that further gives her character somewhat of a mysterious edge.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a quietly brutal film that is not determined to dramatize the act of abortion but instead tells a straightforward human story with a narrative constructed of human obstacles. In short, perhaps the opening song in the film – sung by Autumn herself – is enough to explain to the audience everything they need to know about the patriarchal ruled-world: “He makes me do things I don’t want to do. He makes me say things I don’t want to say.”