With almost no marketing and nary a theater open to screen it, Eliza Hittman’s drama “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” managed to generate a decent amount of online buzz among quarantined film enthusiasts and critics alike. The intimate story centers on the tribulations of a 17-year-old Pittsburgh girl who travels to New York City with her cousin get an abortion after finding out that she is several weeks pregnant. The politics and moral arguments are stripped away as we are view this arrangement from a viewpoint that is both matter of fact, yet achingly vulnerable.

We are told little about Autumn, played with guarded resolve by Sidney Flanigan. We know that she has a deadbeat ex-boyfriend who behaves more like a class bully than a lover, and we know that her home life is unstable. This is exemplified by a few prickly exchanges she has with her stepfather, played by Ryan Eggold.

Autumn confirms her pregnancy with an ultrasound performed by a pro-choice clinic that tells her that she is much less developed than she would later find out.

Deciding to keep the pregnancy and her desired abortion a secret, she and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) take a train to the New York City, the closest Planned Parenthood available. She finds that she will need to wait an additional 24 hours to receive the procedure at a different location in Manhattan. The two young women spend the day looking for food and lodging with very little money at their disposal. Out of desperation, they ask for the help of a stranger, a young city hipster named Jasper (Theodore Pellerin), who seems more interested in possibly hooking up than he does with being a good Samaritan.

Because of the limited budget, the style presented here is mostly utilitarian, but Hittman and cinematographer Helene Louvart successfully capture the interiority and hidden quality of the main character through probing close-ups and a repeating reflection motif.

We see several scenes in which Autumn is questioned by adults with different motives. Both the pro-choice and pro-life clinicians have her best intentions in mind, but it’s Flanigan’s fragile performance that screams the truth through each of these scenes, even as she gives muffled, monosyllabic answers to their invasive questions. When we finally see her break from the pressure, the high stakes tension of this relatable situation bursts with catharsis that finally allows the audience into her troubled life.

Understandably, the subject matter of this film will polarize the audience’s that are sensitive to the topic of abortion. But what lies outside of the political argument that can be gleaned by this picture is the sense that this is a hostile world for young women and that basic information and access to family planning is woefully inaccessible for those that need it, both in the case of an emergency and for preventative care. This is a realistic look at a realistic situation that should be uncomfortable to watch with such objectivity, but Hittman does a wonderful job of letting the story unfold from the bare nature of its circumstance.

The film can be rented on Amazon Prime, Google Play and YouTube.

Grade: A-

Cassidy Robinson is a former Idaho State University student with a master’s degree in film studies from Orange County’s Chapman University. He is currently working as a media journalist in Los Angeles, California.