A lot of important prep paid off.

I feel bad for Eliza Hittman's terrific new movie Never Rarely Sometimes Always. I caught the film at Sundance and was floored by it, and I was hopeful that people would give it a shot given the challenging subject matter, but its theatrical release came just as the coronavirus forced theaters to shut down. For those who are unfamiliar with the movie, it follows two teenage girls from Pennsylvania who are forced to go to New York City to get an abortion without parental consent. It's not an easy movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it'…

The times they are a-changin'. Turns out that when a global pandemic forces movie theaters around the world to close, production companies are more than happy, willing, and able to get their movies into the hands of homebodies faster than the traditional theater release windows allowed. So while we get used to commercials and trailer proclaiming "In Theaters and At-Home Soon", we're aiming to keep you up to date with the latest home video releases, some of which will be the typical digital/physical distribution following theatrical releases, and some of which will be the first time …

Focus Features has released a new trailer for Eliza Hittman's drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always. The story follows two teenage girls, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and Skylar (Talia Ryder), as they travel from Pennsylvania to New York so that Autumn can get an abortion without her parents knowing about it (in Pennsylvania you need parental consent). This new trailer is filled with blurbs of critical acclaim and I agree with it. I caught the film at Sundance and was floored and devastated by it. In my review, I wrote: Hittman doesn’t need to get flashy or swing for a …

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Abortion is a contentious issue, and I imagine an indie film about it that doesn’t have movie stars won’t draw in anyone who hasn’t already made up their minds about being pro-choice or anti-abortion. And yet, watching Eliza Hittman’s moving drama, my concerns about the film’s efficacy of its advocacy slipped away as I was drawn further into the crushing normalcy of a casually cruel system that makes women endure an endless barrage of indignities. Watching the two young women at the center of Never Rarely Sometimes Always is devastating it just because …

Focus Features has released the trailer for Eliza Hittman’s drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always. The film follows two teenage girls in rural Pennsylvania, Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), as they head to New York City to get an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy. The film, which premieres next month at the Sundance Film Festival, will be controversial because of its subject matter, but judging by the trailer, I like how Hittman is getting into the degrees of how difficult it is to get an abortion in this country. If you’re a wealthy liberal living …