{"id":7876,"date":"2020-04-02T03:55:34","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T03:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/?p=7876"},"modified":"2020-04-02T16:48:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T16:48:42","slug":"never-rarely-sometimes-always","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/never-rarely-sometimes-always\/","title":{"rendered":"Never Rarely Sometimes Always"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is not the most comfortable film to watch. At first, you might not get\u00a0 <\/span>drawn in, but eventually, the young women in this film won\u2019t let you turn away. Writer\/Director Eliza Hittman follows with stark realism, a 17-year-old high schooler as she faces a pregnancy she is ill-equipped to handle on her own. Hittman hasn\u2019t made this a movie about the issue of abortion. She clearly wants abortion to remain safe and legal, but she doesn\u2019t demonize either side.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sidney Flanigan is reserved but strong as the lead in her first feature film. The first scenes of Flanagan as Autumn show her singing a retro song in her High School 50\u2019s themed talent show. Singing \u201cHe Has the Power,\u201d sets up her problems with men. She is heckled while on stage by a guy she obviously knows and we see her retaliate later. We get another look at a bad male example with her ominous step-father, (Ryan Eggold), at home. Autumn\u2019s mother does not come to her aid. This is all about self-respect or the lack thereof. There are even two scenes that show her hurting herself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is definitely not a show and tell movie. Hittman intimates what is going on with Autumn. She has cinematographer H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Louvart chronicle Autumn\u2019s moves slowly when she finds out she\u2019s pregnant. Autumn enlists her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) to be her companion as she navigates going from her small town in Pennsylvania to the big city, New York, to get an abortion. It\u2019s a scary adventure for both of them. It\u2019s clear that the cousins are close, but there is not much dialogue throughout the whole film. The blank expressions on their faces say it all.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7874″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7869″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7871″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]After Autumn goes to a women\u2019s clinic in her home town where they are obviously anti-abortion, she decides she has to go somewhere else to avoid having her parents or anyone else know. She and Skylar board the bus for the big city where they go to a women\u2019s clinic with a social worker who is more sensitive to her situation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hittman hit up a real life social worker and former Planned Parenthood staff member in Queens for research. She ended up casting the woman named Kelly Chapman to play the social worker with the calming, non-judgmental voice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her scene with Autumn is the most powerful scene in the movie. Up until then, we know very little about Autumn and her feelings. Her face has a blank page. But when Chapman questions her about her relationships with men, sexual activity, her sexual health, Hitman shoots Flanigan in one continuous closeup as she answers each question hesitantly with Never, Rarely, Sometimes or Always. The hurts of her past are pulled back one layer at a time gradually showing raw emotion. It\u2019s enough for the social worker to ok the procedure which has to be carried out over 2 days.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7873″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7870″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”7867″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]That\u2019s 2 days where 2 young women have to fend for themselves for food and shelter in the big bad city. And they have to contend with lecherous men on the subway, as well as a young guy, Jasper, (Th\u00e9odore Pellerin, Boy Erased)<\/i> they met on the bus to New York who has sexual designs on Skylar. But he\u2019s a little bit of a respite for both girls, taking them bowling and to a bar for karaoke. Still you\u2019re always afraid of what might happen to them. Hittman creates plenty of tension.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s painful watching these two young girls trying to slog through their journey, having to deal with issues they shouldn\u2019t have to deal with at that age, especially without any emotional, family or monetary support. What about their parents? There are a couple of instances that bothered us as a bit of a distraction during the movie. For instance, how did they go days on end without charging their phones and did no one back home notice they were gone and try to call them?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Notable that Oscar award Winning Writer\/Director\/Producer of Moonlight, <\/i>Barry Jenkins, was an Executive Producer on this project. It\u2019s a really downer buddy travel film focusing on a hot button issue. Sidney Flanigan establishes herself as a solid performer and Eliza Hittman\u2019s straight forward writing and directing makes this a movie not Never, Rarely, Sometimes, but Always worth streaming.<\/p>\n

Focus Features \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>1 Hour 41 Minutes\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>PG-13 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Available at VOD[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hjw_QTKr2rc” el_width=”80″ align=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is not the most comfortable film to watch. At first, you might not get\u00a0 drawn in, but eventually, the young women in this film won\u2019t let you turn away. Writer\/Director Eliza Hittman follows with stark realism, a 17-year-old high schooler as she faces a pregnancy she is ill-equipped to handle on her own. Hittman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7876"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7876\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7886,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7876\/revisions\/7886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}