Never Rarely Sometimes Always

johnny_ultimate

Eliza Hittman's much-lauded film has skipped its planned cinema release and gone straight to VOD. Watched it this morning and gotta say it's hugely impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjw_QTKr2rc

The film has a straightforward premise - a 17-year-old (superbly played by Sidney Flanigan) finds out she's pregnant and decides to have an abortion. We follow her from her initial pregnancy test in a dubious local 'women's health' clinic through a series of complications that ultimately lead her to a different state entirely.

It's a film that's thoughtful and compassionate throughout - intimate in its focus, yet also clearly deeply concerned with the circumstances and experiences of those women and girls who seek an abortion in modern America. Music is deployed sparingly, and only to underscore things the characters aren't quite able to articulate for themselves. Some of the scenes pack a devastating punch:

the scene that lends the film its title is a masterful study in letting an actor tell a story with barely any words, while a late film act of quiet, physical solidarity is a beautiful testament to the friendship of two young girls who find themselves in an awful situation

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Really liked Hittman's previous film Beach Rats, but this is a really exceptional film that's well worth seeking out and comfortably one of 2020's best (irrespective of the whole ‘cinemas shutting down’ business ).

cdgalwegian

This is the quietly beautiful kind of film that highlights the skill of a talented filmmaker; the way one might say "I can't tell a story to save my life" and yet there are those who can effortlessly draw an interest in telling a story of going to the shops or the like. Not a lot happens here, but it draws you in the way only someone with a gift of storytelling can.
It's really excellently acted, with almost perfect direction; with a bare bones plot, attention and hence interest is maintained on the performances, while allowing for many nuances. The unwanted pregnancy story is delivered in a non-judgemental way of course, but this serves as a backdrop for me, in that it hides the real engine of the film-

the friendship between the two leads; the value of friendship being the theme

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