Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always – first look review

There are so many expe­ri­ences that, as a young woman, you chalk up to expe­ri­ence. Creepy boss­es and over­fa­mil­iar co-work­ers; pushy male class­mates who will crit­i­cise you whether you sleep with them or not. We are instruct­ed to be qui­et, sto­ic, com­pli­ant, even in the face of sus­tained tor­ment. Eliza Hittman’s heart­break­ing Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always demon­strates these expec­ta­tions and sys­tems of oppres­sion in unflinch­ing detail.

In the UK, we’re lucky to still have health­care which is free at the point of use and pro­vides safe birth and ter­mi­na­tion options for those who need them. Things aren’t so sim­ple in the US, where access to abor­tion is deter­mined by state law, and as such sub­ject to dif­fer­ent rules and reg­u­la­tions. Sev­en­teen-year-old Autumn Callaghan (Sid­ney Flani­gan) realis­es this fol­low­ing her unplanned preg­nan­cy. Her options in rur­al Penn­syl­va­nia are lim­it­ed and require parental con­sent. Wor­ried about how her fam­i­ly will react, she con­fides in her cousin Sky­lar (Talia Ryder) and the two set off on a jour­ney to New York to get Autumn the help she needs.

Hittman’s work as a film­mak­er is always under­stat­ed, remark­able in its pre­ci­sion and hon­esty in deal­ing with seri­ous issues. Her pre­vi­ous fea­ture, Beach Rats, depict­ed inter­nalised homo­pho­bia with a sim­i­lar acute­ness, and Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always nails the trou­bling real­i­ty of repro­duc­tive rights in Amer­i­ca today, high­light­ing how few options are avail­able to vul­ner­a­ble women. There’s a sense of dread which haunts the film as its teenage pro­tag­o­nists attempt to nav­i­gate the com­plex health­care sys­tem while also deal­ing with preda­to­ry men. But there’s not an ounce of melo­dra­ma to be found.

There’s light, too: Hittman empha­sis­es the bond between Autumn and Sky­lar, demon­strat­ing how female friend­ship is essen­tial when faced with a sit­u­a­tion as hope­less and unfair as this. Autumn’s jour­ney is short rel­a­tive to those made by count­less teenage girls every day around the world; even then, mil­lions more are forced into unsafe abor­tions or attempts to self-ter­mi­nate, which can be fatal to the woman. One only hopes that the peo­ple with the pow­er to change things for the bet­ter will see this film and take note.