Mark Reviews Movies: NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 2, 2020

At the start of Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a 17-year-old girl from a small town in Pennsylvania, doesn't have anyone. She might have had people at one point. She has a mother (played by Sharon Van Etten), after all. She has other family members, too, but then, at some point, the mother married a guy, whose existence now seems to consist of drinking and making snide or rude remarks. The mother protests, but it's not enough to change her husband's ways—or to make Autumn think that her mother would listen to what she has to say.

If she has friends, they're absent here. We see Autumn play at a school talent show in the film's opening scene, but the response isn't great. People, from parents to her fellow students, look a little uncomfortable as she sings a melancholy song about someone having "the power of love" over her. A guy shouts out a rather nasty insult at her in the middle of the song, and while that's his only outburst, it's not because anyone comes to her defense. The applause when the song is finished, at best, could be described as polite.

This is a lonely life for a teenager who, at this particular moment, really needs support. Following that talent show, Autumn and her family go out to eat, and when her stepfather (played by Ryan Eggold) makes a scene about how he doesn't want to compliment her, Autumn makes the lonely walk back to her house. She gets ready for bed and, in the process, observes how her belly is extended just a bit.

It's a little bump. It also means that Autumn's entire life could be turned upside-down in a matter of months.

The best parts of writer/director Eliza Hittman's film are made up of such little, quiet moments. It's a film that could be reduced to the basics of its minimal plot, in that the story is about Autumn deciding to terminate the pregnancy and going on a trek to obtain the medical care she needs for that procedure. This is really a film, though, about a lonely person, at her loneliest moment, and the people who show her that she doesn't need to be so alone in this world.

So much is left unspoken here (Even the identity of the man who got Autumn pregnant remains a mystery, although all of the possible candidates—that mocking student, her stepfather, an unknown person—tell a horrible story, especially when a counselor starts asking her about her sexual history). Hittman, though, knows that actions, gestures, and even the tone of routine dialogue are far more important to understanding people and their intentions than any words could illuminate. Take the inciting incident of the bare plot. It's not a grand or even straightforward statement of intent. Autumn, at work at a local grocery store, more or less tells her co-worker cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) that she's pregnant.

Without saying a thing, Skylar pockets every other bill from her cash register as the two settle accounts for the day. She's doing this with their creepy manager (who grabs and kisses the girls' hand when they pass the money-filled bags through a tiny window) in the next room and a security camera staring at them. None of that matters. The only thing that matters for Skylar in this moment is that Autumn—her co-worker, her cousin, her friend—needs help. Everything we need to know about Skylar—her loyalty, her selflessness, her love for Autumn—is communicated in a single, wordless scene (Ryder's performance might be easy to overlook here, but it exudes a warm, empathetic strength that comes to define the film's most affecting moments).

The plan is to sneak away to New York City, where the state laws regarding abortion aren't as restrictive as they are at home. Those restrictions, as well as the way that a local clinic essentially tries to coerce Autumn to complete her pregnancy (The doctor on staff either gets how far along Autumn is wrong or lies about it, to make an anti-abortion propaganda video seem more relevant to her), are detailed before the bus ride. There is certainly a political message to all of this, but it feels ancillary to the story and, more importantly, the characters. As a result, the film's political case resonates on a directly personal level.

The key to Hittman's approach, though, is how it establishes and expands its mood. It's one of feeling lonely in, lost among, and overwhelmed by Autumn's situation, the legal and bureaucratic hurdles she encounters, and the hustle and bustle of a sleepless city—while constantly moving, enduring drawback after drawback, and trying to recover from difficult physical and psychological struggles without any sleep.

We're left longing for some kind of hope among all of this, and we do get it in those little gestures and actions—people treating Autumn, amidst the insults and the ways of men exerting control over her, with the decency, respect, and empathy she needs right now. There's Skylar, of course, a constant even when Autumn lashes out at her in frustration, and there's a counsellor at a Manhattan clinic (played by an uncredited employee of that real clinic), whose genuine concern for Autumn's health and safety is an oasis of calm among the pain.

Then there's Ryder's performance, which grounds Never Rarely Sometimes Always in that pain and confusion, yes, but also in a sense of strength and level-headedness. For everything else that happens in the film, Ryder ensures that it's not just glimmers of hope within this situation. It's a study of someone, so convinced that she's alone, who gradually accepts that there are some good people who genuinely care about her in this world.

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