Sidney Flanigan stars as Autumn and Talia Ryder as Skylar in NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features
Never underestimate the power of an independent feature film with no stars or stacks of studio money to pack a punch of palpable emotional weight.
Rarely do you get to see the emergence of two gifted lead actresses in the one package.
Sometimes, a film is so subtly underscored that it takes you by surprise.
Always stays with you, those films that relate and resonate the subject and its separate moments to real life.
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS is one such gem.
Written and directed by Eliza Hittman, NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS is an intimate portrayal of two teenage girls from rural Pennsylvania plunged into a journey fraught with family fracture and personal precariousness.
Faced with an unintended pregnancy and a lack of immediate family support, Autumn, aided and abetted by her cousin Skylar embark across state lines to New York City to secure a safe termination.
With the address of a Brooklyn clinic in hand, the cousins board an early morning bus bound for New York City, hoping their venture will take no more than a 24 hour turnaround. But their trip takes an unexpected turn when Autumn learns that a one-visit procedure isn’t possible.
As the cousins navigate two fraught days and nights in an unfamiliar and overwhelming city, their journey becomes one of heightened precariousness, potential perils and profound solidarity.
NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS is driven by two gifted lead actresses, Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder, both making their feature film debuts. If these two women never make another film, with NEVER, RARELY, SOMETIMES, ALWAYS they can proudly rest on their laurels.
Flanigan is faultless as Autumn, a flawless performance that illuminates and extends human experience and empathy.
Ryder, while offering a contrasting character, is the personification of sympathy, sorrow without pity, authentic compassion.
The precision of the screenplay is a major part of the picture’s perfection. There is not a sigh of artificial respiration, the film is oxygenated by an impeccable authenticity.
Sadly, the authenticity of male behavior is a baleful, malevolent factor, abrasive, abhorrent, creepy and just plain misogynist.
Hittman’s depiction of her characters’ precarious situation makes for a film that is both emotionally intimate and genuinely gripping, infusing the narrative with various nuanced elements that have the audience questioning and guessing throughout.