Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

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therewillbeblus
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Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#1 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:31 pm

Never Rarely Sometimes Always: The task of capturing youthful experience with authenticity is a challenge too few indie filmmakers can manage without an ironically grandiose-by-way-of-detaching pretentiousness or resisting the urge to insert artificial melodrama into the mix, which forces an uneven contrast of tones (as was my experience watching Nomadland). Eliza Hittman's effort here is terrific though, with nouvelle vague shots on the streets of New York, and meditations on the struggles of youth isolated within systems without transforming the themes into macro ethical statements. I hated Beach Rats, which seemed to exude all the face-slapping theatrics listed above, but this film is humble in its restraint, acknowledging that behavioral observations shot with modesty say more than words and stylistic intrusions ever could. The bond between the two girls is genuine, the drama is more intense because of the lack of verbal reveals about stakes and compromise. The single-take titular scene is one of the most incredible, raw, and honest moments in any film I've seen, not only because of the abstentions, but because the woman asking the questions is refusing to change her affect, behaving like a real provider would, where compassion is transmitted in quiet caring gestures, not in overblown responses. This is also a case where the gamble of casting is critical, and the film wouldn't work without Sidney Flanigan, who expresses so much without ever overstating anything, even in body language.

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senseabove
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Re: The Films of 2020

#2 Post by senseabove » Sat Jan 02, 2021 8:10 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Sat Jan 02, 2021 6:31 pm
Never Rarely Sometimes Always: The task of capturing youthful experience with authenticity is a challenge too few indie filmmakers can manage without an ironically grandiose-by-way-of-detaching pretentiousness or resisting the urge to insert artificial melodrama into the mix, which forces an uneven contrast of tones (as was my experience watching Nomadland). Eliza Hittman's effort here is terrific though, with nouvelle vague shots on the streets of New York, and meditations on the struggles of youth isolated within systems without transforming the themes into macro ethical statements. I hated Beach Rats, which seemed to exude all the face-slapping theatrics listed above, but this film is humble in its restraint, acknowledging that behavioral observations shot with modesty say more than words and stylistic intrusions ever could. The bond between the two girls is genuine, the drama is more intense because of the lack of verbal reveals about stakes and compromise. The single-take titular scene is one of the most incredible, raw, and honest moments in any film I've seen, not only because of the abstentions, but because the woman asking the questions is refusing to change her affect, behaving like a real provider would, where compassion is transmitted in quiet caring gestures, not in overblown responses. This is also a case where the gamble of casting is critical, and the film wouldn't work without Sidney Flanigan, who expresses so much without ever overstating anything, even in body language.
Thanks for the reivew on this one, and pleased to hear it's a step in the right direction. I was no fan of Beach Rats, though I wasn't as put off as you—I thought most of its faults were, yes, in the (faux grandiose, artificial, as you say) Poignant Moments of Hittman's script while, independent of that, her directing was quite good, as were many of the more carefully observed, small moments—the guilty sense of relief that caregivers experience, or Dickerson's jealous watchfulness of his sister's PDA. Those were all grace notes to a melody that didn't really work, but made me interested where Hittman'd go next... This one just got lost in the pandemic. I'll have to bump it up my 2020 list.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: The Films of 2020

#3 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:13 am

I'm surprised Never Rarely Sometimes Always wasn't a thread already. Anyway, I thought NRSA was just okay. It struggled to empathize with the lead female characters for who they were. Instead, it created empathy through the situation they were in and their toxic surroundings. Their performances were very strong but I still didn't find there was enough character information provided, leaving some of their actions and motivations questionable. Furthermore, this left the film leaning too hard on showing toxic masculinity to get its point across. Every male character shown or referenced in NRSA was a predator, a creep, or simply an unpleasant jerk. This served the themes of the film and created compassion for our lead character, however it came off preachy and shallow. On the plus side, the film's study on abortion, both as a woman's right and an arduous process in some regions of the country, was well-done. And Sidney Flanigan undoubtedly gave an excellent performance, highlighted in the titular scene mentioned above, which was easily the best scene in the film and one of the best scenes from any 2020 film I've seen so far.

On a slightly-related note, that's a shame about Beach Rats, which I had high hopes for. I'll still give it a watch but my expectations just dropped a few notches.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Films of 2020

#4 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:46 am

I know what you mean, but I also think we got plenty of information, just not in the direct ways we're used to.. telling a friend to go away and then making up through applying foundation, or the fantastic scene of secret hand-holding that occurs at the end- whose hand is being held and why that person is doing what they're doing, completely develop these characters more than beefy narrative ever could. I think the actions and motivations are simple- this is a story of camaraderie and support from women to women in acute crises. Maybe it's because I can be more introverted and shy but I related to the protagonist's mannerisms and at times alienating behavior only too much. I've also known and been with women who've had abortions and know about the stomach-punching, etc. that can occur behind closed doors. The film could have given more exposition but it made choices to avoid a traditional entry-point for the audience to grab hold of a surrogate, in part because I think the film is designed for men not to have that privilege. As you say, there is a lot of toxic masculinity here, and it's laid on thick, but from what I hear it's also a relatively normative pattern. I didn't think this was preachy or shallow, and the film was careful not to make this political subtext its primary mission and instead lend the camera to observing and aligning with Flanigan through being 'with' her, just like her cousin, which is all we can do. The empathy comes in that unconditional support. The situation isn't spoonfed to us because we can only empathize with feeling trapped and helpless in broad terms, not specifically. We must have seen two different films, because the one I saw spent almost the entire film in close-ups of Flanigan's face, processing her circumstances with often-impenetrable focus hiding swelling emotion both in isolation and with some support, with some details of social commentary and politics as background noise.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: The Films of 2020

#5 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:27 am

Never Rarely Sometimes Always is one of the best movies of the year.

I mean, let's be real, any movie with this politics, competently shot in a kind of cinema verite style, would get good reviews, but there's a lot here that elevates it. The script smartly withholds information, keeping it focused on character and preventing it from getting too didactic. And even though it's already pretty nightmarish, it cleverly alludes to horrifying obstacles that don't happen, letting you imagine other, more frightening scenarios for young women seeking abortions. It's also just legitimately beautiful--a shot of a bus reflected in shopfront windows, a camera pan to the protagonist's hand gripping the hand of a stranger during the procedure (a shot that's mirrored, heartbreakingly, later), Flanigan's performance (especially in THAT scene), etc.

But it almost seems silly to talk about all this stuff in a movie whose politics are so urgent and enraging. It reminded me of a recurring phrase in Jessica Valenti's memoir Sex Object, a "world that hates women," which is less an objective statement about the world (though maybe) and more an expression of what it feels like for women to navigate sexism. This movie is a pretty damning indictment of that reality.
Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:13 am
Furthermore, this left the film leaning too hard on showing toxic masculinity to get its point across. Every male character shown or referenced in NRSA was a predator, a creep, or simply an unpleasant jerk. This served the themes of the film and created compassion for our lead character, however it came off preachy and shallow.
Sadly, I think this aspect of the movie is realistic. For many young women, daily life really is like that.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: The Films of 2020

#6 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:12 pm

TheKieslowskiHaze wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 9:27 am
I mean, let's be real, any movie with this politics, competently shot in a kind of cinema verite style, would get good reviews, but there's a lot here that elevates it. The script smartly withholds information, keeping it focused on character and preventing it from getting too didactic. And even though it's already pretty nightmarish, it cleverly alludes to horrifying obstacles that don't happen, letting you imagine other, more frightening scenarios for young women seeking abortions. It's also just legitimately beautiful--a shot of a bus reflected in shopfront windows, a camera pan to the protagonist's hand gripping the hand of a stranger during the procedure (a shot that's mirrored, heartbreakingly, later), Flanigan's performance (especially in THAT scene), etc.

But it almost seems silly to talk about all this stuff in a movie whose politics are so urgent and enraging. It reminded me of a recurring phrase in Jessica Valenti's memoir Sex Object, a "world that hates women," which is less an objective statement about the world (though maybe) and more an expression of what it feels like for women to navigate sexism. This movie is a pretty damning indictment of that reality.
Toland's Mitchell wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 4:13 am
Furthermore, this left the film leaning too hard on showing toxic masculinity to get its point across. Every male character shown or referenced in NRSA was a predator, a creep, or simply an unpleasant jerk. This served the themes of the film and created compassion for our lead character, however it came off preachy and shallow.
Sadly, I think this aspect of the movie is realistic. For many young women, daily life really is like that.
I wasn't at all suggesting their experiences aren't realistic. In light of Me Too, I've spoken with female friends and co-workers and many affirmed they regularly have these experiences, which is disturbing. The film does a good job putting us in their shoes. Of course, not all men are predators, creeps, or jerks. However, in NRSA, all men shown or referenced are like that. That's what I found preachy. Again, it forced us to primarily empathize with our leads through external forces as opposed to internal. It's an absolutely lousy situation the pregnant teen is in...an unhappy home life, a toxic workplace, and going through all the hoops and obstacles to get an abortion. Still, I didn't feel like I knew her character very well. Rather, I felt more connected with her cousin, who takes charge of things by stealing money from the register, and later contacting the guy from the bus when they desperately needed help. I had mixed feelings on her. In any case, I found their actions weren't always motivated and also created a theme of righteous pro-choice women vs. every terrible guy they encounter. These choices still work, for it makes its sociopolitical messages land, and allows us to watch the bond between the girls unfold. However, I still feel the film could have made those accomplishments without simplifying its settings, and by providing maybe just a teeny bit more info.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#7 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:52 pm

But is the cousin "taking charge of situations" in more tangible actions like that the only language by which to communicate motive or establish characterization? Is Flanigan's search for her friend and choice to hold her hand secretly not communicating motive of appreciation, apology, and intimacy; or the action and response themselves establish characterization through the loyalty, sacrifice, and dedication that doesn't need to be asserted boldly to be meaningful? I think we often rely on more flashy information to align with characters, but here must adapt our approach for empathizing. Their age-appropriate defensive behavior clarifies the emotion far more than those superficial actions, which I'd argue are more "hollow". The cousin contacting the guy isn't what matters, it's that she isn't enjoying herself and, most critically, isn't expressing this in a manner that inserts herself into the spotlight- for us the viewers or for her friend to shift compassion her way. That humility is what speaks volumes about her character, and which is why I reject the reading of "righteous pro-choice women" against the world. The filmmaker is empathizing with them partly in relation to external contexts, but only to emphasize the fact that they are isolated and unsupported in this instance- sure, from an angle of policy, but first and foremost because of a lack of clinical protective factors in their own social contexts divorced from political agenda. I think an element that's been unfairly overlooked is that these girls are in their youth. They are naive, and expectations for them to be anything but overwhelmed and internalizing their emotional states, confused over the process of navigating systems and how to manage money, is unfair. This very realistic, modest approach to characterization helps reinforce the resilience in coping with this crisis by putting up external walls, but also translates these walls as a product of being submerged into an 'adult' predicament without the tools to handle it. This would've been another Beach Rats if Hittman overstated their characters in traditional dramatics, which would have been disrespectful to the situation at hand and to how teenagers might actually behave in these instances if conveyed in transparent expressions of who they are and what they want. The omission of pronounced signifiers of characterization colors in their experience precisely because they are going through motions without a blueprint of how to actualize those actions that would typically signify characterization.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#8 Post by Cde. » Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:38 pm

I felt the 'righteous pro life women vs everybody else' messaging really dragged down the film. The first warning sign about the reductive and obvious level this was working on was the talent show opening. A bunch of 1950s tribute acts followed by a sensitive singer songwriter performance from our lead that seems to speak of abuse, for which she is mocked.
It's such an outdated and out of touch shorthand for saying that these people are backwards, and it feeds into the cultural narrative of 'urban elites' condescending to small town America. The real life version of this talent show would be full of wannabe rappers and pop stars. High school kids in rural areas don't give a shit about the 50s.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#9 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:05 am

Cde. wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 11:38 pm
I felt the 'righteous pro life women vs everybody else' messaging really dragged down the film. The first warning sign about the reductive and obvious level this was working on was the talent show opening. A bunch of 1950s tribute acts followed by a sensitive singer songwriter performance from our lead that seems to speak of abuse, for which she is mocked.
It's such an outdated and out of touch shorthand for saying that these people are backwards, and it feeds into the cultural narrative of 'urban elites' condescending to small town America. The real life version of this talent show would be full of wannabe rappers and pop stars. High school kids in rural areas don't give a shit about the 50s.
The song sung by the lead is not a "singer songwriter performance" but also a cover of an oldie, "He's Got the Power" by The Exciters. The talent show clearly had an "oldies" type theme to which all students adhered. And the scene's inclusion in the movie is more about a nostalgia for an imagined, mythic American past than it is about painting that specific community as "backwards." (i.e. Any high school could have a talent show with a 50's theme; it's not a dig at rural schools or people).

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#10 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:23 am

Thank you TheKieslowskiHaze, great post.

I won’t argue against the opening scenes illustrating some aggressive demonstrations of targeted misogyny but the follow up in the restaurant seems to indicate more hypervigilance as a trauma symptom following her wherever she goes rather than an objective portrait of her milieu as ‘backwards’. The way her father brushes her off for not speaking up isn’t a great parenting intervention but also isn’t mutually exclusive from the fact that adults aren’t mind-readers. Her similar repelling ‘leave me alone’ to her friend late in the film lets this point stay grey- it’s not indicated as her social context’s fault that she keeps others at a distance, it’s a trauma-reactive symptom, a strength as a protective defense mechanism, and also just being a teenager. I don’t think the liberal pro choice NY clinic folks are any kinder in their interventions than the local pro life lady- they all act authentically with muted compassion, only one believes babies are being killed and the others don’t..

I actually admired how the protest in NY didn’t turn into any intense barrier to overcome. They noticed the mob and just walked right in, which was a tasteful, baffling, and impressive choice. If the movie was didactically drafting a thesis of ‘righteous pro choice women vs the world’ why would it subvert that expectation? The mob doesn’t even say anything hateful they’re just chanting Bible verses or hymns. I feel like some of these points are fair to draw peripheral attention to, but these are all peppered details in the background of a film that predominantly just sits with our heroine and asks us to join with her experiences devoid of politics. She isn’t reflecting on social policies in at least 90% of the film and neither should we, if we want to meet the film where it’s at.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#11 Post by lzx » Tue Jan 05, 2021 12:46 am

Iirc, Hittman stated in an interview that the presence of the Planned Parenthood protestors was actually unscripted. They just happened to be there the day they shot the clinic exterior and the cast and crew had to improvise accordingly.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#12 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:12 am

She could have cut it out or reshot them entering any other building pretending to be a clinic without protestors for continuity. The fact that she included it as peaceful and unthreatening in the finished film says a lot about how important it was for her to stress this "righteous pro choice women vs the world" reading everyone is grasping at in specificity vs the raw experience of their emotional states within a broadly overwhelming milieu that transcends only one shade.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#13 Post by knives » Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:36 am

Or maybe she didn’t think through the implications and just didn’t want the expense of another day’s location search and shoot.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#14 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:13 am

That’s my point, knives- not that she went out of her way to show pro life people as good, she clearly has a political opinion on this matter, but that it’s not her primary agenda. “Not thinking through the implications” means not caring enough to omit or edit a scene that would be integral to such a loud position people are accusing her of taking, because it’s not a priority for insertion, when her real focus is on the emotional stages of these women.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#15 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Tue Jan 05, 2021 11:55 am

In defense of the movie's admittedly didactic politics, I'll point out that it respects viewers' intelligence enough to allude to plausible scenarios even more nightmarish than the one it depicts.
SpoilerShow
The creepy guy who trades a make-out session for cash could have been even more dangerous and predatory.

The protagonist could have attempted more extreme and dangerous methods for a self-administered abortion.

The interim period between procedures could have gone wrong, leaving a 17 year old girl facing a medical crisis alone in a big, unfamiliar city with no place to go.

The anti-abortion activists could have been dangerous, violent, or explicitly cruel.
Had the movie followed through on any or all of the above possibilities, I may have agreed with complaints about its contrived preachiness. But instead of showing us these horrors, it prompts us to imagine them. It has us recognize how bad Autumn's situation is, but it also invites us to see the ways it could have been much worse.

So this is not a worst-case scenario being presented as the norm; it's instead a pretty plausible scenario that, even though it's bad enough, derives horror from our understanding that things could have gone (and sometimes do go) much differently.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#16 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Tue Jan 05, 2021 3:02 pm

According to an interview with Vulture, the protest scene was not a coincidence: https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/barry-j ... lways.html
Adele Romanowski wrote:...We shot there when we knew this protest would be happening, without actually knowing what would happen. We hadn’t been able to rehearse it or block it. But we knew it should be there and we wanted to try and capture it...
So the protest was deliberately filmed and inserted into the movie. This doesn't change things for me, as my issues with NRSA lie elsewhere.
therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun Jan 03, 2021 5:52 pm
But is the cousin "taking charge of situations" in more tangible actions like that the only language by which to communicate motive or establish characterization? Is Flanigan's search for her friend and choice to hold her hand secretly not communicating motive of appreciation, apology, and intimacy; or the action and response themselves establish characterization through the loyalty, sacrifice, and dedication that doesn't need to be asserted boldly to be meaningful? I think we often rely on more flashy information to align with characters, but here must adapt our approach for empathizing. Their age-appropriate defensive behavior clarifies the emotion far more than those superficial actions, which I'd argue are more "hollow".
Of course characterization can be subtle, as it was here. And yes, the tangible actions the cousin took were sometimes hollow and unsympathetic. However, due to her character's age/naivety and the urgency of the situation, I can understand them and not criticize her for them. Anyway, the film had some genuine character moments, but they felt too sparse. It's been about three months since I watched the film, and I vividly recall the terrific title scene and the hand-holding scene at the end. Other sequences (e.g. the girls going to an arcade, getting food, wandering around NY, etc.) were aimless and forgettable because, again, I didn't feel there was enough character info provided in the first and second acts to make those scenes interesting. They were a means to kill time, however I don't feel they added much. This all changed when the bus guy re-entered the story, but as I already mentioned, this re-framed the girls' character arcs around the film's social agenda.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#17 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jan 05, 2021 3:58 pm

At this point we're talking past each other, because since the bulk of the film is these filler scenes, the intention to "kill time" doesn't support the thesis that the film is primarily interested in a social agenda, unless you're implying that Hittman was purposefully giving us nothing in those moments as a wind up for a pitch, which seems puzzling and disingenuous to the empathy she feels for these characters who are not only worthy of being cared about because they're persecuted. That itself is a problematic stance and one I'm shocked anybody would profess as the film's design. The film's greatest strength is that the camera empathizes with them as human beings divorced from politicized victimization. It definitely includes some evidence of didactic posturing but only as part of a wider composite- one systemic dimension of the infinite enigmas that these girls can't make sense of but feel immensely.

This is another reason I think the reading of this specific political agenda as the core message doesn't work- because to take a singular progressive position as the rationale for the dysregulation, as opposed to serving a primary purpose of joining in the stew of nebulous emotional confusion, would undercut the experience of being in that situation, and indirectly signify that if the world was understanding in this way, life would be fine. Reading the film the way you and some others do, it's not only awful, but incredibly harmful to the causes it champions! Thankfully I think it's far more humble and respectful, but definitely a case where I'm grateful I saw the film as I did.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#18 Post by nitin » Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:21 pm

I thought this was pretty good with its strongest points being the focus on the two main characters and their largely unspoken bond. There's nothing here though that hit me as hard as the dinner scene in 4 Months 3 Week and 2 Days, although the title scene is absolutely heartbreaking.
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Did anyone else get the sense from the way Autumn observes the stepfather in a few scenes that he was the abuser? Specifically the scene where he plays with the dog and the way she reacts when he tells her how great she was (in the school play) at her mother's insistence. If so, it does make the end scenes play much more bittersweetly

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#19 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:41 pm

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I think many of us will default to him based on gut instincts but the film wisely doesn’t give the specific abuser(s) names because that would draw the power away from the film’s focus on her experience with an unearned tangible outlet for our emotions. She doesn’t get to have that and neither should we, and the film is far more powerful for its refusal to play into that voyeuristic desire. Also, I think it’s pretty clear that there were multiple men/abusers given how the film portrayed widespread evidence that same-age male peers considered her a slut, information they wouldn’t be privy to if she was only having a sexual relationship with her father, and I got the sense from the interview that she engaged in these more humiliating sexual acts without consent vis coercion from her peers. Now, we can certainly speculate that the father started this conditioned passivity through early childhood abuse, the warning signs are certainly there, but denying us of that info is intentional. Either way, she’s facing an uphill battle in recovering with trauma and learning how to engage in healthy sexual and romantic relationships.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#20 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Mon Feb 22, 2021 11:58 am

nitin wrote:
Sun Feb 21, 2021 11:21 pm
I thought this was pretty good with its strongest points being the focus on the two main characters and their largely unspoken bond. There's nothing here though that hit me as hard as the dinner scene in 4 Months 3 Week and 2 Days, although the title scene is absolutely heartbreaking.
SpoilerShow
Did anyone else get the sense from the way Autumn observes the stepfather in a few scenes that he was the abuser? Specifically the scene where he plays with the dog and the way she reacts when he tells her how great she was (in the school play) at her mother's insistence. If so, it does make the end scenes play much more bittersweetly
SpoilerShow
Yes, I think that's the strongest possibility. But there is also that boy at the restaurant who mocks her, and there is the boss who harasses her cousin.

I agree with ttwb that it doesn't really matter who it is. The movie asks viewers to consider different ways a teenaged girl could be abused, the different reasons why she might seek an abortion.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#21 Post by nitin » Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:36 pm

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Sorry, some poor wording on my part in my original post. I agree with everything both of you have said.

There is clearly more than one abuser in Autumn's case (and also multiple sexual partners, I think she said two during the last 12 mths as an answer and six overall).

I had also actually started my original spoiler with the words "Not that it really matters in the context of what Hitmman's is trying to portray..." but then I eventually deleted those words because personally the end scenes do play differently to me and much more bittersweetly if her return home is a return to a family setting within which there is a potentially more immediate threat to her safety. Her responses to questions from the counselor about her safety and also whether she would be agreeable to a follow up appointment in her hometown are ambiguous (if still heartbreaking) but do demonstrate an awareness that there may be, sickeningly, further potential trauma ahead"

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#22 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Feb 23, 2021 9:45 pm

Yeah I think the ambiguity around the appt. has more to do with the fact that the clinic in proximity to her home was not supportive, which we've seen from first-hand experience, hence the trip taken to NYC. I still greatly appreciate how they portrayed that woman as a good person whose beliefs just weren't objectively supportive to Autumn's needs. She wasn't some abrasive witch, and in fact was very kind and empathetic until action was discussed and her value system understandably affected her response.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#23 Post by aox » Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:54 am

RE: the identifying abuser
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Completely agree that this is irrelevant to the film and is actually a strength. And that is what makes the titular climatic scene so intriguing is that each of her answers adds to the mystery. She has been raped. But, she has also been having sex since she was 14, and has had two partners this year but isn't specific enough to be able to lay blame. I found this scene so completely masterful, and as TWBB said, brilliant for how (realistically) clinical it was.
I don't think this movie made a single bad decision, and I get why the emphasis on toxic masculinity might make a bunch of men uncomfortable. However, from my experience with the women and girls who have come in and out of my life, this reminds me of how each and everyone described their day-to-day life from their age of pubescence. The feeling of always having to be defensive even for something seemingly innocent like a strange man tapping your shoulder to ask for the time. And that is just in general. Seems incredibly stressful to me.

"Don't you ever wish you were a dude?"
"All the time." i.e. without hesitation.

I do have a question though that I have been grappling with. The conservative doctor at the beginning of the film told her she was 10 weeks pregnant. She gets to NYC and is told she is actually 13 weeks meaning she has to get a more complicated and involved abortion. Why is this in the film?

Was it a legitimate mistake, or was the woman trying to play games here? If the latter, wouldn't it make more sense to lie to someone who is at 10 weeks that she is at 13 weeks to scare them with a more involved medical procedure? The woman even called while she was on the bus to have her come into the clinic again. Why? To delay her further or try to continuing to persuade her to bring the baby to term for an adoption? What was the implication here? I feel like I am either missing a piece of information or potentially thinking too hard. It's just that everything in this movie seems so deliberate that I can't imagine this being some weird passing detail.

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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#24 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Mar 25, 2021 11:59 am

I think the implication is that the misinformation could have been either intentional or a mistake. The first clinic seemed to be skeptical thinking the woman purposefully gave misinformation, and the second clinic seemed to be more willing to give the benefit of the doubt to this gap being a common margin of error. Going by the first interpretation, the logic would be that if the woman undershoots how far along she is, Autumn will not be in a rush to go take care of it ASAP, and so a) she will not be in a fight/flight crisis response feeling a strong need to decide right now, and thus is more likely to reconsider keeping the child in a state of calmer psychological stability vs. the impulsivity that could stem from an imminent ticking clock, or b) if the earnest convincing to keep the child fails, by the time Autumn considers the woman's pro-life content and does decide she wants an abortion, it will now be too late- she may think she has a few weeks to decide when in reality she doesn't. If the woman had outright said she was 13 weeks along, a) Autumn is less likely to consider the prolife philosophy with a calm mind, and b) will rush to NY (which she did anyways) to take care of it, and there will be no chance of stopping her from aborting the child (unless of course Autumn felt hopeless and decided not to even try, but that seems far riskier for this pro-life woman than alleviating the stress and slowing things down). I hope that makes sense.

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TheKieslowskiHaze
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Re: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020)

#25 Post by TheKieslowskiHaze » Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:49 pm

aox wrote:
Thu Mar 25, 2021 10:54 am
I do have a question though that I have been grappling with. The conservative doctor at the beginning of the film told her she was 10 weeks pregnant. She gets to NYC and is told she is actually 13 weeks meaning she has to get a more complicated and involved abortion. Why is this in the film?
Unless I'm mistaken, that woman wasn't a doctor, but a worker a a "crisis pregnancy center" (not an actual clinic).

These are pro-life centers designed to seem like health clinics, but their actual purpose is to steer women away from having abortions. Critics of these places point out the dangers in this, of having people who are not medical professionals giving women medical advice.

The movie, by showing how that center gave the protagonist inaccurate information that caused serious complications for access to care, echos this critique.

Here's a Sam Bee bit on the whole thing.

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