Never Rarely Sometimes Always a Gem

 

 NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS (2020)

Directed by Eliza Hittman

Focus Features, 101 minutes, PG-13

★★★★ ½

 

What do you do if you’re an unpopular small-town girl from a dysfunctional family and find yourself pregnant at age 17? That’s the dilemma facing Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan). You might try the local pregnancy center, but only if you can stomach the patronizing faux concern of its staff or the anti-abortion video they ask you to watch. You might also consider a termination, but if you’re 17 and live in Pennsylvania, that requires parental consent and who wants to fight such a battle with an ineffectual mother and her jerk of a partner?

 

Never Rarely Sometimes Never is a quiet but deeply moving look inside the world of a not-a-kid but not-quite-an-adult from Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. The film’s town, Ellensboro, is fictional though its profile is similar to that of Sunbury: small (<10,000), along the Susquehanna River, overwhelmingly white, conservative, paternal, played out, and inhabited by just enough shady characters to intensify whatever attitude comes naturally to an adolescent.

 

Autumn knows she can’t be a mom or carry a child to term in a community in which some already think she’s a “slut” and don’t even know about her condition. Internet research suggests she needs to go to New York to deal with her pregnancy. The film thus evolves into a road trip for Autumn and her sole support: her 18-year-old cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder). This entails a 175-mile bus ride to New York and entering a city they know mostly in the abstract. Their ignorance and youthful nonchalance might be good things–too much information could have driven them despair.

 

To say things don’t go in-and-out smoothly is an understatement, but full credit to director Eliza Hittman for keeping the focus on Autumn’s choices rather than turning the movie into a hokey run-from-danger potboiler. There is uncertainty–is the young man they meet on the bus trustworthy? –but the worries remain psychological rather than physical. Add a bad Ellensboro misreading of Autumn’s condition and the need to be in New York for two days to the list of things Autumn and Skylar need to figure out.

 

Almost no one saw this movie in a theatre, though it garnered praise and prizes at Sundance and other indie film festivals. Blame COVID as one reason why it quickly went to video-on-demand, though I can’t help but think that its subject matter, lack of recognizable stars, slow pacing, and hot-button politics would have deterred wide distribution in the best of times. That’s a crying shame, as this is a very good movie. Watch for Flanigan and Ryder in the future, as both show promise, especially in their ability to dribble out emotion rather than resorting to histrionic floods.

 

They also know how to get inside the logic systems of the liminal not kid/not adult world I mentioned above. There are several scenes that might make you wonder why they did illogical A rather than rational B. Remind yourself that they are still tethered to what they were, not what they are becoming. Autumn is stoic and brave, but she’s also teen-like in her sullenness, her devotion to her phone, her weak interpersonal skills, and even her working-class semi-Goth style. And know this: The film’s title references response prompts to intake questions at Planned Parenthood clinics. These include questions such as: Has anyone harmed or threatened you? Has anyone ever forced you to have sex? Have you ever had unprotected sex?

 

Unless you can answer “never” to queries such as these, be wary of judging Autumn. Perhaps it would be better to redirect sanctimony toward those who condemn or condone without walking in her shoes. Among the many virtues of an interior film such as this is that it forces us to imagine rather than offering bromides or laurels.

 

Rob Weir