Never Rarely Sometimes Always

Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the new film written and directed by Eliza Hittman, her third movie, feels sort of like the anti-Juno. I didn't not like Juno, the 2007 comedy with slightly similar story, but it's fair to say Juno might not have been as concerned or grounded in reality as Never Rarely Sometimes Always is. Juno was a pleasant teen romance comedy; there is nothing whimsical in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, a film that can be quite difficult to watch a times.

Sidney Flanigan plays a 17-year-old named Autumn. She's a bit reserved but musically talented, living in rural Pennsylvania. She's in every scene in the film, and in the first, she is playing the guitar and singing a song, presumably at her high school's talent show. She is interrupted by a male teenager you calls her a slut. No one reprimands him or comes to her defense, and the others' silence is deafening, as they say. Autumn is fazed, but she continues her song. Characters who are determined and resilient do not have to be featured only in superhero films.

Things are not going well for Autumn. Her father describes her as "always in a foul mood." Suspecting that she is pregnant, one day Autumn goes to a clinic before school to take a pregnancy test. The test confirms that she is pregnant; ten weeks, she is told. She asks if it's possible if the test could be wrong. "A positive is always positive," the doctor tells her.

She wants an abortion but is shown an anti-abortion video and given a pamphlet. The doctor mentions to her that she could consider giving the baby to a family for adoption. After failing to terminate the pregnancy on her own and receiving no assistance from the clinic, she eventually reveals the truth to her cousin, Skylar (played by Talia Ryder). They gather some money and catch a bus to New York City, a city in which they've never been and where they don't know anyone. It's not as complicated getting to the clinic for the procedure as it could be, but there are numerous complications along the way. Hittman has described the story as following a hero's journey structure.

The most obvious use of this form is what Joseph Campbell called "Road of Trials". Viewers likely will get the impression that Autumn and Skylar have never taken the bus to New York and probably have never even been to New York. They both pack their things into a gigantic suitcase that they have to lug around the fast-moving city, and yet they never have a place to change their clothes. They have plenty of time, though. For different reasons, Autumn's appointment has to keep being delayed. All of these trials are where we seen the finest acting from Flanigan and Ryder, both of whom make their film debut and whose performances are exceptional.

Some might argue that this is a very political film. I don't see it that way. While Never Rarely Sometimes Always revolves around a subject that has been heatedly debated for decades and remains at the forefront of the culture wars, the film is not so concerned with ideology. True, it does take a side, and its hope is that audiences who might be less likely to consider the position women sometimes unexpectedly find themselves in with unplanned pregnancies would be more understanding. However, it would be difficult to argue that this film is not fair and realistic, and it certainly demonstrates Hittman and her cast and crew's talent at procuring empathy from their audience.

Various scenes, one after the other, prove this. Whether it's painful moments in which you will possibly turn your ahead away from the screen or thought-provoking subtleties that are not essential to the plot but that the film doesn't seem to mind if you ponder, Hittman is worthy of much praise. For example, one major point is left very ambiguous. If an answer had been given, it might have shifted audience members' understanding of the point of the film; a weaker filmmaker might not have recognized how important it was to instill the film with this enigma. Hittman and her team handle these delicate subjects about as tactful as filmmakers can. You owe it to yourself to see it.

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Dark Waters

Dark Waters is a "grown-up movie" at a time when grown-ups can't agree on anything. Like half a dozen films before it, it focuses on the the pursuit of justice against a corporation polluting people. It should sound at least a little familiar because it's practically a remake of the 1998 legal film A Civil Action, while also sharing similar DNA to Erin Brokovich and other films. (There's even a sequence of the main character organizing a never-ending collection of files that looks straight out of All the President's Men.) In Dark Waters, the villainous corporation is DuPont, maker of Teflon. They may be poisoning everyone without their knowledge, but they're "good people", as we're told, being the community's largest employer.

Dark Waters is likely to find, though, that in the twenty-plus gap between this film and A Civil Action, hyper-partisanship has risen so much that many viewers simply won't buy the film's arguments. The political gap between the left and the right has risen by more than twenty points since 1994. This is not inherently a bad thing, but it inevitably will make the film seem less urgent and less relevant. 

Mark Ruffalo, deliberately flabbier than his Hulk days, is the real-life environmental lawyer Robert Bilott. He is an attorney for the Ohio-based law firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister, where a prominent portrait of Ohio senator Robert Taft, son of William Howard Taft and one of the firm's most prominent lawyers in its history, hangs in the reception. One day, a meeting is interrupted by a West Virginia farmer named Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp), who knew Robert's grandmother. Tennant is desperate for help, as his cows appear to have been poisoned; they have black teeth, enlarged organs, and are dying of cancers. Tennant's farm has become a grave yard for almost two hundred dead cows. Those that still live have become violent. Bilott takes some convincing, but he eventually decides to help Tennant by representing him. It is the beginning of a rather timely pursuit, one that will take more than a decade.

Camp is given heavy eye brows and free rein to make some noticeable choices. "Ya blind, boy?" is one line that is really hammed up by the usually much more reserved Camp. Victor Garber plays the DuPont executive dripping with banality of evil until he yells "hick!" at Robert when confronted and sued to make the audience really despise him. Tim Robbins, who plays the senior partner at Taft and Robert's supervisor, does a mostly decent job; his character basically supports Robert's quest to bring justice, but then he delivers an annoying speech featuring wannabe calls-to-action that seems so out of line with the film's reasonably measured approach that maybe Robbins, notoriously liberal, wrote it himself.

But the biggest disappointment in this film's decisions for its cast is to give Anne Hatheway a throw-away role. She plays Sarah, Robert's wife, who gave up her own legal career to take care of their house and raise their three boys. The film may think it's giving Hatheway a lot to do and "agency", but it isn't. Sarah is the same as virtually every wife portrayed in this type of film: supportive, but only until it starts to put a strain on their relationship. Robert starts to become obsessed with his work, barely speaking to the boys, and taking pay cuts. She's there to lecture him about this, but the film doesn't really care about her perspective, for we are meant to sympathize with our persistent, low-key hero. Her character only adds to the personal stakes the male protagonist faces. "How'd it go?" she dutifully asks him, as he places his defeated head on her shoulder and cries. Dark Waters is clearly a "great man" film, focusing almost solely on the work of one environmental lawyer and minimizing every other contributor in the fight. This makes it less appealing than it could have been.

Dark Waters is more or less a smart movie with an accurate condemnation of self-regulation and the evil acts corporations can commit, but there's a lot of liberal-splaining in this film, as expected, and while it is an important message, many audiences will likely turn away in these hyper-partisan times. The challenge for the studio was to present it to conservative members who could buy into the call for action. This is possible; just look at how toxic sludge killing their dogs turned many senior citizens in Florida into eco-warriors. But the movie passes on the challenge, or at least fails it. Some moments will make certain audience members' blood boil, and yet those same moments will make other audiences roll their eyes. One way or the other, you will likely Google PFOA and other forever chemicals and wonder if they're in your water and blood. Whether or not you do much else beyond that might be a measure of how successful this film is.

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