Never Rarely Sometimes Always - 2020
This review may contain spoilers.
There are some people that will see this merely as a "message movie." A liberal grenade lobbed over the walls of Planned Parenthood and other small-town medical clinics, aimed squarely at the Pro-Life picketers on the other side. See, it would seem to say, there are PEOPLE at the other end of these heinous acts. Consider feeling for them for just a moment. You may begin to perceive them as human beings, after all.
Some folks will feel this way about Never Rarely Sometimes Always.
Those folks...are wrong.
Now, this may very well be the CONCLUSION that viewers reach after this tense, taut 100 minute experience of immersion wraps. But, it is not the building blocks of its conception. No, Eliza Hittman's rich and tender direction ensure that we receive better than that, a film that never creeps into melodrama or becomes heavy-handed in its thematic exploration. Where it could paint with broad brushstrokes or replace flesh-and-blood characters with political mouthpieces, NRSA burrows in deep and turns up the dial on its realism.
If we want to see evidence of these trends, we need look no further than the remarkable Sidney Flanigan, who in her first screen credit has done more with a single role than many other actresses accomplish in a decade. Her portrayal of the lead character, Autumn, is quiet, nuanced, largely muted, yet infinitely complex. Her performance is completely of a piece with Hittman's mastery of tone and visual aesthetic. We are completely immersed in this young lady's world in a rural Pennsylvania town where she seems largely forgotten by family and peers and is excoriated by any male who deigns to acknowledge her.
Indeed, Eliza Hittman utilizes lots of tricks to get us inside Autumn's world. She shoots the picture in 16mm, which gives it this very gritty aesthetic. We sense roughness and poverty all around the edges of the frame. Autumn's life is not polished in the least, and this becomes significant for the kind of journey she'll need to undergo to reach her "destination." Moreover, the screenplay, penned by Hittman herself, is very spare and unadorned. Rather than fill our ears with endless drivel, she chooses to show long takes of these people in their native environment. This only enhances the realism on display.
While mentioning great performances, I should note the work of Talia Ryder as Autumn's cousin Skylar as well. Skylar is much more world-wise than Autumn. She knows who to flirt with (or kiss), whose pockets to reach into for an extra couple hundred bucks, and the like. If there is a message at the heart of Never... it seems to be more about toxic masculinity than anything else. The males in this picture (Autumn's drunk stepfather, the man exposing himself on the subway, the lingering boy on the bus) are largely perverts at worst and prone to subtle objectification at best.
Autumn, as we'll find out, has been victimized by these cultural forces (I will say, as a criticism, that it would have been nice and maybe MORE realistic to meet one decent male in the picture). Skylar, on the other hand, has learned to wield her sexuality as a tool and weapon to accomplish her ends. She is riveting in her balanced portrayal of a compassionate friend to Autumn aiding her on her journey who also doubles as a savvy girl hardened to a male-dominated world.
We move now to the best moment of the picture. At this point, the scene containing the titular phrase has been lionized in some corridors and endlessly parodied in others (just scan some Letterboxd reviews on this film for examples of the latter). Nevertheless, I mention it because in a film that is deeply human, sensitively directed, naturalistically acted, and written without a single frill or superfluous detail, this is the very epitome of all that has gone before. If Autumn is the center and film's anchor point, this scene is the core principle emanating outward to all else.
We learn that Autumn suffered some misfortunes of her own. That perhaps she had been exploited, used, and reduced to what her body could offer to another unknown male in her life. We also gather that still waters run deep, and this young woman who is shy and awkward, is really barely keeping it together through this entire ordeal. She feigns control but the pain and loss threaten to engulf her. Hittman lets us glimpse this for but a moment before moving Autumn forward in her story. It's a top 10 scene of the year, and one that belongs in the empathy creation Half of Fame for its clear-eyed guts and authenticity.
I suppose that is as good a description of this entire work as any. An experience unlike many indie dramas we've seen, namely a submersion into the life of one girl just trying to piece her life back together, and her gutsy cousin who speaks on her behalf and has the gumption to get her where she needs to be. A film which in saying little, speaks volumes, never sensationalized but no less critical. In its quiet devastation, a portrayal of a journey many young women have walked, often alone, in shame and pain. The kind of picture that hangs with you, uncomfortably, for a long while after it's over.
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