New film shows harsh realities of abortion restrictions

There have been several movies about abortion, but none quite like Never Rarely Sometimes Always. That’s because this compelling dramatic film, written and directed by Eliza Hittman, takes an unflinching look at the harsh realities of what a 17-year-old in rural Pennsylvania has to go through to get an abortion for an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. The teenager at the center of the story is a fictional character named Autumn Gallagher (played by Sidney Flanigan), but the obstacles and emotional journey that Autumn experiences are very real for anyone who’s been through a similar situation.

Focus Features will release Never Rarely Sometimes Always in select U.S. theaters on March 13. It has already won prestigious awards, including the Silver Bear (second-place prize) at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival and the Special Jury Award for Neorealism at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

“From a creative point of view, I’m really pleased at how the film has been embraced,” Hittman tells Women’s Media Center. “It’s a quiet film where we spend so much of it with this young woman who’s so isolated in her body, and watching her go through a very difficult journey and a very difficult process. It’s not an easy movie [to watch].”

Autumn gets a pregnancy test at a facility in Pennsylvania that she thinks is a medical clinic but that is actually a “crisis pregnancy center” affiliated with a pro-life group that discourages women from getting abortions. (Autumn’s first clue that she’s not in a real clinic is the fact that they use the type of test that can be bought at a drugstore.)

The fake clinic misleads Autumn into thinking she’s less far along in her pregnancy than she actually is, in the hope that by the time she decides to terminate the pregnancy, it will be too late for her to have a legal abortion. When Autumn finally goes to a real clinic, thinking that she’s 10 weeks pregnant, she gets a rude awakening when she finds out the truth: She’s 18 weeks along.

Because Autumn is under the age of 18, she can’t get an abortion in Pennsylvania without her parents’ signed permission, but she doesn’t want to tell her parents that she’s pregnant. So she and her cousin/best friend/schoolmate Skylar (played by Talia Ryder) have traveled by bus to New York, where minors do not need adult permission to get an abortion.

But after Autumn and Skylar arrive in New York City, what they thought would be a one-day trip turns into two, when Autumn finds out that New York state law requires a minimum two-day process for abortion. The only health insurance that Autumn has is through her parents, and she doesn’t want the abortion to show up on their insurance records. Therefore, she has to pay for the procedure herself, which doesn’t leave enough money for Autumn and Skylar to travel back home.

Hittman came up with the idea for the movie in 2012. Now that there have been more aggressive challenges to reproductive rights and abortion access, Hittman says: “I hope that in this current climate and with everything that’s going on, the film helps people realize the deep impact that these barriers have on people’s lives.”

She adds, “I was researching journeys that women take all over the world. Even though it became an American story … it was very universal. The film is reaching an audience beyond the U.S., even though it deals so specifically with the state restrictions within Pennsylvania.”

And the movie isn’t just for female audiences. Hittman comments: “I think when you make films that are so female-centric, you sometimes run into a lot of really stubborn male audiences who have trouble identifying. But with this movie, what I’m really happy about is that it seems to be playing effectively to both the male and female demographic.”

Through the loyal friendship between Autumn and Skylar, the movie shows the importance of women supporting each other. “I did initially try to work on a treatment of the film where [Autumn] was alone — and it didn’t work,” says Hittman. “And I started to think, ‘Who would she take this journey with?’ I’ve taken many quiet rides with friends to Planned Parenthood, and I was thinking about the unspoken bond in those moments.”

Never Rarely Sometimes Always also avoids the histrionic melodrama that’s often on display in movies and TV shows about unplanned pregnancies. Autumn keeps a lot of her inner turmoil to herself, but it comes out in harrowing ways, such as when she punches her abdomen repeatedly to try to induce a miscarriage. Her bruises are visible when she gets her ultrasound at the clinic in New York.

The story doesn’t judge Autumn for her choice. Although it’s not directly stated in the film, it’s implied that the guy who impregnated her is a fellow student who’s been abusive to Autumn, and whatever relationship they had is now over.

The movie also shows that Autumn and Skylar, who work together as cashiers at a supermarket, are being sexually harassed by an unseen male supervisor. Every time they hand over their cash registers’ money through a window at the end of their shift, they cringe as he kisses their hands.

And in the movie’s most powerful scene (which inspired the film’s title), at the clinic in New York, Autumn is asked a series of questions about her personal life. The multiple-choice answers are “never, rarely, sometimes, always.” Her heartbreaking reactions reveal some of the trauma she’s experienced in her life.

Hittman says, “When there’s a story about a hero on a journey, there’s usually an antagonist.” She explains that in this film, “the antagonist is … the culture of sexism and misogyny and harassment. And that tension is something I wanted to carry in the film, from beginning to end.”