Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Every year, the Sundance Film Festival provides a handful of films that start the year with a good amount of buzz that normally gives the start of the year some gems with the occasional film holding on in the conversation until award season at the end of the year. One of the major films to get buzz at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival was Eliza Hittman's Never Rarely Sometimes Always which follows 17-year-old Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan) who travels with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) from their small Pennsylvania town to New York City in order to receive an abortion considering she legally cannot receive one in Pennsylvania without the consent of her parent considering her age.
Obviously with a story like this, Never Rarely Sometimes Always was bound to be a deeply emotional and moving film bringing to life the modern-day struggles individuals go through when trying to get an abortion especially for those younger individuals who don't have the support of the family or community around them. From the mental process of dealing with the process to the physical toll it takes on the body. This is a hard film to watch that captures both the big emotional moments and unspoken struggles beautifully. Easily one of the biggest factors to these emotions connecting as strongly as they do it the leading performance by Sidney Flanigan. Her ability to craft a performance that showcases the pain and trauma she is going through without the need of big emotional outbursts or even dialogue for extended amounts of time is widely impressive especially considering this is her feature debut as an actor.
One of the most noticeably unique aspects of Never Rarely Sometimes Always is the screenplay also by Eliza Hittman. The film does very little to welcome the audience into its world or character dynamics, instead choosing to throw the audience into the world relying on small pieces of dialogue and body gestures to tell the story slowly revealing various plot elements to the audience. Where this lack of context might make the beginning the film feel a bit underdeveloped and even confusing at times, it does end up leading to a rewarding experience as the audience slowly catches on to what is happening in these characters' lives. Where most of the story does come through, the one area where the film does suffer the most from this style of storytelling is sadly also one of the most important dynamics in the film which is that between Autumn and Skylar. Where the film does a good job setting up their connection and willingness to help each other through pain, as the two starts to face conflict against each other it feels out of place and confusing as the film never dives into what these two are really thinking or going through. The audience just isn't able to gather these deeper and more complicated personal emotions through the indirect dialogue and expressions that the film gives these characters causing the film to feel less effective than it would like to when it comes to this relationship.
Where Never Rarely Sometimes Always does provide an interesting experiment when it comes to usage of dialogue and does provide some legitimately effective emotion and scenes that leave a haunting effect on the audience. Sadly though, it also suffers quite a bit in areas because of its unique approach to storytelling making the film feel like it should be more in multiple areas. It is good but never quite finds the groove needed for it to be great.
Where Never Rarely Sometimes Always does provide an interesting experiment when it comes to usage of dialogue and does provide some legitimately effective emotion and scenes that leave a haunting effect on the audience. Sadly though, it also suffers quite a bit in areas because of its unique approach to storytelling making the film feel like it should be more in multiple areas. It is good but never quite finds the groove needed for it to be great.