Credit: Angal Field/Focus Features
The past few months have provided some genuine riches from women directors. Autumn de Wilde’s Emma just made it into cinemas before they closed their doors and the end of last month saw the digital release of Kitty Green’s highly praised The Assistant. Eliza Hittman’s powerful Never Rarely Sometimes Always is the latest on the list and destined to have a similar impact.
Winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, it follows seventeen-year-old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) as she discovers she’s unintentionally pregnant and decides to have a termination. It means a trip to New York and, with her best friend and cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) for support, she heads for the city, believing that everything can be sorted out in a day and they’ll be back before anybody notices they’ve gone.
It’s a landmark film for both actors. For Flanigan, it’s her first film and her acting debut, while for Ryder (also to be seen, hopefully, later in the year, in Spielberg’s West Side Story) it’s her first full-length feature. Their relationship is crucial to the film and, talking from their homes in America during the lockdown, they both reveal how they approached this aspect of the story, as well as their reactions to making a movie where the emphasis was on facial reactions rather than dialogue. Flanigan also talks about the experience of filming the crucial scene – essentially the climax -that gives the film its title.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always is available digitally in the UK now and Ireland and will be available on VOD from 27th May. It is also available in both formats in the United States.
