starring: sidney flanigan, talia ryder, théodore pellerin, ryan eggold and sharon van etten
written by: eliza hittman
directed by: eliza hittman
release date: jan 24, 2020 (currently streaming on hbo)
now, before i begin this post, i am going to warn you. it gets pretty dark. and by dark, i do not mean in the fashion of YA novel protagonist' warning you about some dark, fantasy tale. this ain't the hunger games. this ain't a wattpad story. this is my story, and i mean, if we're going to be frank, it deals with some unsettling topics like sexual assault. if you're not into all that, you should probably stray away from this. if not, read on.
the most beautiful thing about a film like never, rarely, sometimes, always is that it's never really about what you think it is until...it is. its like when you're a kid and you're afraid of the dark. there's a noise coming from the closet, but you know there's no such thing as monsters. they told you that there's no such thing as monsters. they told you not to be afraid and so you tell yourself you're not afraid and most of the time, that feels like the truth. i mean, at least this time it does. so, you get up to face your fears because, what else are you supposed to do and suddenly your standing with there with your closet door wide open, lights on and there's a monster staring back at you. and its only then that the unsettling light bulb goes off in your head that you're staring at the monster in the closet that you were promised wouldn't be there. however, then its also at that moment you realize that maybe the monster in front isn't what was so scary, but instead, its the fact that you'd been told your whole life that monsters weren't real, even though they actually were.
that's what this film is about.
although when you take a look at it on the surface level, the film is what it says it is: a film about a girl going to get an abortion with her best friend. that's it. simple, right? well, no. autumn (sidney flanigan) is a teenager who realizes she's pregnant, but that she also has to get rid of it. and this is something that the film gets right because unlike most films about abortion and pregnancy, she, like most teenagers and other young people, don't get an option. they have to get rid of it. so, that sets young autumn on her journey and thus we follow her on this journey.
her next stop: the local women's clinic. its there that the pregnancy is confirmed, but not without the added guilt. "your beautiful baby boy," says the nurse at the clinic as she begins the heart machine (or whatever it is called), as the heartbeat is "most magical sound you'll ever hear." its all whimsical and fun until autumn tells the nurse that having a baby is not what she wants. the nurse sees autumn's ears perk up at the words "abortion-minded" and she sets her aside to "show her something." we know what it is. she knows what it is and unreluctantly, she watches it, all because she does not know how to say no. eventually she leaves to make plans on how to go elsewhere for her procedure, but not without calls from the nurse who wants to "check in with her." autumn answers her calls while she's on the train to new york for her prodecure, and she talks to the woman for a while and tells her she can call her back later, (even though she will not be pregnant later) again, all because she does not know how to say no.
this trend of not knowing how to say no follows the girls during their journey and later, we find her and her cousin skyler (talia ryder) in new york, clueless, broke and all without having said much to each other on the ride there at all. and the girls don't really need to say much to each other. i mean, what is there really to say? hittman is a wonder at
exploring the nuances in how people who are not cis-men, especially those that are younger, communicate with each other and themselves without saying anything at all. its in
the subtle nods, the empty silences and unfinished sentences that, again, people who are not cis-men learn how to
navigate unsafe spaces (i.e: the whole fucking world) around them and moreover, the pressures put on them
that force them to into these spaces in the first place.
spaces that they were told repeatedly were safe.
spaces that they know are not safe.
when the film begins and we see autumn and skyler at work, we believe that they are in a safe environment. working for someone who cares about these two 17-year old girls at what is presumably their first job. they are not.
when autumn goes in to the women's clinic to get her pregnancy test, she believes she is in a safe haven as that is where scared, pregnant people go for answers; for options. she is not.
when autumn and skyler board the train and meet a young man who taps skyler on the shoulder to talk and gives her his number, they think he's just a harmlessly, annoying "nice" guy. he is not.
when autumn reaches the second clinic, she thinks that she is home free and ready to get her abortion and go on home. she is wrong.
why? because they have been fed lies. we have been feeding our young people about how the world is and much like us, the viewers, they, too, are left to fill in the blanks in how deeply embedded this kind of treachery lies in our culture and its treatment of people who are not cis men.
skyler and autumn are not protected at work. the older, creepy store manger that is twice the girls' age kisses skyler on the hand right where the cameras can't see. he doesn't let the two girls go home early from their shift after autumn has thrown up medication from trying to self-abort because "he will get lonely" without them. a store customer who is twice the girls' age invites skyler to a party as she is ringing out his alcohol at the store.
autumn is not protected at the women's clinic. the first clinic she tries gives her options, leaving out the one she is looking for the most. in addition, they lie to her about how far along she is which forces her to have to undergo a more complicated procedure than she had expected.
autumn is not protected at home. boys leer insults at her as she lamets on-stage via song about not being in control of her body. her step-father taunts her at the table, undermining her success because she's "always in a foul mood". her mother pretends to not see any of this and moreover, the fear in autumn's eyes when she looks at this man.
they are not protected by anyone but themselves. when autumn finds herself bleeding in the bathroom from the first procedure, she is alone. she calls her mom, who worries about where she is, but autumn silently sobs, says nothing on the phone and eventually, hangs up and moves on.
when the young man on the train touches skyler on the arm for far too long before introducing himself, she looks down at this hand, blinks, looks back at him and uncomfortably smiles. the conversation continues and before she even realizes it, he's given her his number before she's had a chance to say no. and after they meet up again and skyler asks him for money for their ride home, he guides skyler away from her friend to "find an atm outside" together after she refuses to go downtown to find one with him. all of this occurs with a hand on her back and an uncomfortable look on skyler's face as she turns back towards her friend.
but skyler returns with the money and the girls make it home, but not without the uncomfortable feeling that something has changed. they know this was not a normal trip. it was never intended to be "just another trip." they knew the lies were there. they knew they were not safe. they knew the monsters were in the closet. they knew what they looked like. they knew that the battle would be hard, they just didn't think it would be this hard.
because the girls are street smart. they knew that a procedure had to happen, but not that it would take two separate appointments or that it would cost that much. they knew to call the boy from the train when they didn't have any money left, but they didn't know what they had to do to get it. they knew that getting to the appointment wouldn't be to hard if they figured out how to get there, they didn't know that the questions that the doctors would ask would be so hard.
because as simple as a few "multiple choice" questions should be, they aren't.
Answer, says the counselor at the clinic, Never. Rarely. Sometimes. Always. the questions are easy enough, she says, that is, until they aren't. Has someone ever forced you into a sexual act, ever, in your life? but the answer never comes.
sometimes it never comes.
i don't know. after i watched the film, it wasn't until my partner was lying next to me that i realized i was curled up into a ball on the floor. "what's wrong?" he asked. "can you talk to me?" i couldn't. i opened my mouth and my throat went dry, so i closed my mouth and said nothing. we both laid on the floor until i got up and into our shared bed. he got ready for bed in the bathroom. i watching buzzfeed videos until my legs stopped shaking. he went to bed with his arms around me. i got up an hour later to open the window up because it got hot. i stared out the window for so long that i started to imagine what it would feel like to fall out. we live on the fourth floor.
i closed it back up and started to write this. the words i couldn't say to my partner because i didn't know what to say. the words that autumn couldn't say to the counselor at the clinic because she, too, did not know what to say.
so here's what i am going to say now: when i was 18, i was sexually assaulted at a party. i was drinking, so was everyone. i saw him staring at me from across the room. he was older than everyone else was at this party. he smiled at me. i smiled back. he motioned at me to come closer. i waved back that i was busy. next thing i knew, a small mosh pit broke out and i was thrown across the room -- into the man.
he snatched me immediately up and pinned me against the wall and put his face next to mine. i tried to yank my head off of the wall. he pushed against me harder. i said "i had to go." and either the music was too loud, or he didn't care. maybe even both. he shoved his hands into my jeans, into my underwear and inside of me.
it didn't last long. i cried the entire time. no one stopped dancing.
when i pulled away from him. i ran into my friend. i told him i had to go. he told me he didn't want to. i told him i was leaving. he told me "no" and shoved me back into the crowd and told me to "have fun." he shoved me back into the man. the man held onto my waist for a few moments after i bumped into him. i ran up the stairs and out the door.
my friend chased after me. we didn't talk until i made it to their dorm bc i did not want to be alone. i told them what happened, asked if i could spend the night. they said no. i walked back to my dorm that night and knocked on another one of my friends' doors. they were drunk and in the middle of showering when i knocked on their door. they let me sleep in their bed while they slept on the floor.
i avoided thinking about it for a long time. for a long time, i didn't think anything bad had happened. i was alive, wasn't i? i was drunk, wasn't i? it was my fault, wasn't it? that really wasn't rape, was it? maybe if i hadn't been out so late? maybe if i hadn't been drinking? maybe if i had been louder? maybe if i had better friends? i found myself googling "was i really raped?" on my phone several times a day. i thought i saw this man around several times a day. i couldn't report it. i couldn't even remember what his face looked like. i started seeing the therapist i'd ghosted again after i had a panic attack at the library because i thought it was him in the stacks. she had to convince me to let me to take my free sessions and begged me to come see her again next week. i did.
sometimes i feel like it never happened; that i made it all up. sometimes i like to pretend that it didn't happen. sometimes i really do forget that it happened. and sometimes, i remember everything at once and it feels like its happening all over again; that i am 18 again. that i am helpless. that i am trapped in a basement and no one can hear crying because everyone is wasted and the music is too loud. all i knew was that no one was looking out for me and moreover, my friend didn't listen to me when i told him something was wrong and we didn't speak for several weeks after that (until he begged me to "get over it" over the phone, calling me every over day for weeks and showing up outside my dorm, when he knew i would be getting home, to apologize).
but it happened and it could happen again. but i am not 18 anymore. i'm 23. i'm not going to say that i know better because there are not lessons that can be learned when it comes to things like this. i rememebered was thinking for years, even with therapy, that it wasn't rape. that the word rape is such an ugly word. that that could never happen to me. "oh, i was just sexually assaulted," i told my therapist. "that's not that bad right?" not knowing or believing what had happened to my own body and trying to use semantics to downplay the situation. imagine being me, worried about calling a crime, what it is: a crime.
what happened to me is a crime. what happens to these girls in this film is crime. but the only person that can protect me, is me. the only person that can protect these girl is themselves and each other, if they can let each other in.
sometimes it is hard to let other people in because how can you trust a world that's let you down so much? how can you trust other people when you're living in a world that's constantly preparing you for a battle you can't properly fight. they tell you to be strong, to keep your guard up and build up certain walls as to not be let down, but what happens when you do all of that and still fail?
autumn is constantly trying to figure things out for herself. every other word out of her mouth is some iteration of the words, "i'm fine" or "i've got it", even though she isn't fine and doesn't "have it". when someone makes either of these girls uncomfortable, they sit there and take it. they even smile back because they've been conditioned to be nice and polite even if they're under physical attack: by men, by boys, by other women and other people in general, but most importantly by the system itself.
these girls have a whole lot against them, much like most people who are not cis men do from the moment that they're born. and what is worse is that they're lied to every moment of their lives by the very people and systems put in place that are supposed to protect them. its only when she's asked very clearly about how she feels that she realizes that there's a problem in how she's been treated in the first place and the fucked up thing about it all is that she doesn't have anything to say about it.
because what could you say after you've essentially been gaslit your entire life?? and its this point in the movie that demonstrates the kind of pain that generations of non-men have been going through and moreover, will continue to go through if we continue with the very dangerous precedent that's been set in modern America way before the camera has started rolling. this is because this story, while fictitious on-screen, is the very story of many others like autumn and skyler. moreover, its prolific in the way that it encapsulates this very devestatingly unifying story without doing much work at all.
like i said before, its in the glances. its in the silences. its in the closeups of the bruises on her stomach during the ultrasound after she tries to self-abort by punching herself in the stomach. or the girls' hands interlocked as the boy kisses skyler after he gives her the money. the close up on how open sklyer's eyes are and how they keep darting back-and-forth in fear. and how autumn looks at her because she knows there's nothing she can do about it. its in the girls doing their makeup in the bathroom together. and how they eat pasties together and play at the arcade like young people are supposed to be doing, but instead they have to go out of their way to get the help they should already be afforded, but, yet, aren't. and even though all of that occurs, the film seemingly also ensures that without hope, these kinds of stories will only continue to have to be told down the line.
