Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is a high school student who looks just as unhappy as most of her peers in an unnamed Pennsylvania town.
Quiet and reserved, she doesn’t have friends and isn’t close with her mother or stepfather (Sharon Van Etten and Ryan Eggold).
Autumn’s closest confidante is her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), who works with her at the local supermarket.
When Autumn discovers that she’s pregnant, she tries to induce an abortion by punching herself in the stomach and overdosing on vitamin C.
Autumn is a cipher-like character, and newcomer Flanigan plays her with such understatement. It comes as a shock when, in a crucial scene at a women’s clinic, she finally gives in to the welter of emotions that she’s kept in check.
Flanigan is undergoing an astonishing transformation in real time. It’s a moment that brings the audience to a place that transcends moralizing or more thoughtful equivocation.
If Autumn is the protagonist of “Never,” it’s Skylar who emerges as the hero, with Ryder playing her character with the right blend of self-sacrifice and resolute grit.
The film never spells out the precise circumstances of Autumn’s pregnancy. It does portray, however, in detail the aggressions that Skylar is forced to endure on a daily basis, from being creeped on by a customer and assaulted by her manager to deflecting the flirtatious banter of a young man on the bus to New York.
In “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” Hittman presents the complexities of the abortion debate, with great empathy and outright anger.
Cast
Sidney Flanigan as Autumn
Talia Ryder as Skylar
Théodore Pellerin as Jasper
Ryan Eggold as Ted
Sharon Van Etten as Mother
Kelly Chapman as Social Worker
Kim Rios Lin as Anesthesiologist
Drew Seltzer as Manager Rick
Carolina Espiro as Financial Advisor
Credits:
Directed, written by Eliza Hittman
Produced by Adele Romanski, Sara Murphy
Music by Julia Holter
Cinematography Hélène Louvart
Edited by Scott Cummings
Production companies: BBC Films, Pastel, Tango Entertainment, Mutressa Movies
Cinereach
Distributed by Focus Features
Release date: January 24, 2020 (Sundance Fest premiere); March 13, 2020 (US)
Running time: 101 minutes
Budget: about $5 million