Even with ever-tightening restrictions in many places, abortion may never be truly impossible for rich women to get in the United States. However, Never Rarely Sometimes Always <\/em>reveals how the medical procedure continues to grow tougher to have if you\u2019re not a privileged woman in a major metropolitan area in a blue state. Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) is a 17-year-old high school student who works part-time as a cashier at a grocery store in small-town Pennsylvania. When she discovers she is pregnant, she learns that, as a minor, she could only have an abortion with the permission of her parents. Her stepfather (Ryan Eggold) is casually cruel, but something more sinister and sad seems to exist between them than just his hurtful words.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n So instead of getting approval from him and her more permissive mother (singer Sharon Van Etten), Autumn and her devoted cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) scrounge together all their money, pack a suitcase, and take a bus to New York at dawn. When they arrive in the city, they realize that the procedure still won\u2019t be as easy \u2014 or as affordable \u2014\u00a0as they\u2019d hoped, largely as a result of the treatment she received in her home state. You feel every crack in the New York sidewalk as Autumn and Skylar trundle between the Port Authority bus station and Planned Parenthood clinics in Brooklyn and Manhattan, rolling a suitcase and struggling to carry the emotional baggage of the situation, desperate for an end to the pregnancy that Autumn recognizes that she isn\u2019t ready for.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Never Rarely Sometimes Always<\/em> doesn\u2019t just examine the hardship of abortion; it also looks at the smaller indignities of identifying as female in 2020. Whether it\u2019s the shudder-inducing daily harassment of teenage girls by their grocery store boss or the random horrors of an empty car on the New York City subway, no place is truly safe for them. However, each challenge offers up solidarity and sisterhood \u2014 particularly between Autumn and Skylar \u2014 as a balm for what women go through regularly. Thanks to the two young actresses, their friendship feels lived-in and honest, with the type of ride-or-die connection that only real closeness can provide.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Much goes unspoken in Never Rarely Sometimes Always<\/em>, but Hittman\u2019s sensitive script and the strong performances still make it feel specific and true. The scene that gives the film its title \u2014 a pre-procedure interview by a Planned Parenthood counselor \u2014 is never explicit in the trauma(s) experienced by Autumn, but it doesn\u2019t need to be. In her feature debut, Flanigan is a quiet revelation as Autumn, whose emotions are clear even when she doesn\u2019t open her mouth. Empathy courses through the film (there were audible gasps in our screening, at multiple moments), and it\u2019s impossible not to feel for Autumn and her unnecessary hardships. But what\u2019s most remarkable about Never Rarely Sometimes Always<\/em> isn\u2019t just how affecting it is in the moment you\u2019re watching it; the film lingers, impossible to shake even weeks after you\u2019ve seen it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With her 2013 debut It Felt Like Love<\/em>, Beach Rats<\/em>, and now Never Rarely Sometimes Always<\/em>, Hittman has proven herself an adept chronicler of adolescent experiences. Her voice as a filmmaker amplifies those who are still learning how to express themselves, as she tells stories that are vital and valid, regardless of the age of the viewer. With its PG-13 rating versus an R, Never Rarely Sometimes Always<\/em> might have a better chance of being seen by those who glimpse themselves in its important coming-of-age story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is out Friday in limited release.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At once as intimate as a sigh and as urgent as a klaxon, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is an essential […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":594,"featured_media":13622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340,1381],"tags":[1098,162],"class_list":["post-13619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","category-movies","tag-movie-review","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/594"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22885,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13619\/revisions\/22885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/never-rarely2-1024x576.jpg\")
A<\/h1>\n\n\n\n