Eliza Hittman’s Portraits Of Teenage Pain

Never Rarely Some days Always gets its name from a pivotal scene. 17-year-old Autumn (played by newcomer Sidney Flanigan) is asked a series of questions at a women's health care clinic in New York. She's come for an abortion, having traveled to the city from smalltown Pennslyvania immediately after discovering that the procedure requires parental consent in her residence state. Yet first, she has to answer a series of probing questions about her sexual history. Because the teen responds to each inquiry with a hushed never, rarely, some days, or routinely, she's forced to reckon with her own buried traumas. It's a brief moment of vulnerability; a much-needed release.


Filmmaker and screenwriter Eliza Hittman views her work as "portraits of pain," she tells MTV News over the phone. Like several new releases this month, her third feature premiered through on-demand platforms right after theaters across the nation shut down in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Never Rarely Some days Always is a little bit of tough sell in the social distancing era. It's not a feel-good romp, soapy teen melodrama, or family-friendly adventure. It's a quiet glimpse into one teen's life, a story of girlhood, and also a snapshot of a frustrating  health care system that often fails women and marginalized communities. Filmed over the course of 27 days, the heartrending drama depicts loneliness and emotional isolation, which is even more potent today as soon as human connection is hard to come by.


In this conversation with MTV News, Hittman talks about her inspiration for the film, what makes the teenage experience so creatively compelling, why she prefers working with emerging actors, and why Autumn's personalized story speaks to a universal issue.


MTV News: A through line in your work, from Felt Like Love to Beach Rats to this film, is the teenage experience. What makes teens so compelling for you as a storyteller?


Eliza Hittman: I've only really gravitated to work youth and around the representation of youth. You grow up watching all these classic John Hughes movies, and films about what it means to be teenager as well as a young person in the world. Also it was so hard to be able to see myself and understand myself through those movies that I habitually sought out films that showed a more complex understanding of the challenges of being a young person — that growing up is so much a method of disillusionment, having the way that you imagine yourself and think about the world becoming disillusioned.


MTV News: The young characters in your film, especially in this one, Autumn and Skylar, convey a lot of emotion through silence. They're not the common teens you visualize on-screen. 


Hittman: I'm routinely more concerned with the way that they feel, the way that they act, more than I'm concerned with capturing the way young people really talk. And it's about showing these very intimate private moments that you wouldn't visualize in other movies about young people. I habitually think about films as being sort of outtakes.


MTV News: Sidney Flanigan is such a revelation in this film. Since you give attention to the way that young people act and the emotions that they don't routinely articulate, how did you collaborate with Sidney to develop the character of Autumn? 


Hittman: One of the real challenges routinely in casting young people is finding young performers that have real inner worlds on screen, and real visual, intellectual, and emotional complexity. Sidney auditioned for the film. Lose never done a movie before. And however I might feel from her audition that there was such an emotional depth in her, and vulnerability and sincerity, and fragility. Yet what was very crucial to me is that she didn't feel like victim. Along with a lot of people auditioned, and the opening thing their impulses were to amplify a sense of victimhood. Sidney didn't do that.


MTV News: Did you work with her to bring Autumn to life, or did you already have the vision in your head of who this teenager was and what you needed Sidney to do? 


Hittman: We did not have enough time. One of the joys of working with young people is that they really grasp the immediacy of acting. And thus Sidney and Talia [Ryder, who plays Autumn's cousin Skylar] were so much fun to work with because they just got it. They dove in. We had several days to answer questions and work on building their relationship, just as young girls, not as characters. However we all just got involved with the shoot. I think Sidney brought a lot of herself to the role, nevertheless nothing gets improvised.


MTV News: You had the opening idea for the film right after reading an article about the death of a young woman in Ireland. However you determined to set it In the
U.S.. Needless to say, a woman's access to safe reproductive care is a world offer. Was there a reason why you made this a American story? 


Hittman: Initially, I did wish to prepare a film set in Ireland. It wasn't tough, unfortunately, to think about ways to translate the story here. Because there really are so several ladies who travel from rural areas to urban areas to access reproductive care. So for me, it was about wanting to be specific. I didn't aspire to tell a general story. I'm not creating a documentary.


I picked Pennsylvania, and I looked at the limitations of minors that exist in that state. And I really just attempted to think about, through talking to doctors, what the journey would really look like. It's specific to a minor in Pennsylvania. However certainly, it's a journey that girls take all over the country.


MTV News: It contextualizes a larger issue. 


Hittman: I think in telling localized stories, you're able to tap into something universal.


MTV News: This is Autumn's story, although we never learn much about her. The film takes place over the course a number of days, and while she's harboring lot of pain, as well as a lot of angst, the sources of that pain are never completely explored. This is just a little snapshot of her life. Why is that? 


Hittman: It's like you mentioned — it's a story where you just spent three or four days with the character. And I routinely knew that the story was so much about the obstacles in getting the abortion, and I wasn't telling a family member drama. So I wanted the audience to feel things about her world and feel things about her family member life, and just get a sketch of her world without making it the focus of the film.


MTV News: you are a filmmaker who's customary her own aesthetic and her own point of view. How would you describe your work?


Hittman: Hard. They're lyrical portraits of characters in pain.


MTV News: Why is that so compelling for you to depict on screen? 


Hittman: It's a truth to our experience. And especially with this film, it's so much about the pain and loneliness of having to go through this by herself. A lot of females will watch the movie and know somebody who went through something similar, or might've gone through something similar alone. Abortion, it's a reality. People need abortions. People go through these experiences, and the fact that it's such a stigmatized subject and controversial subject makes it hard for people to find community around what they've been through.


MTV News: You've mentioned that this is a critical film for young people to be able to see, specifically young girls and conservative gentlemen. Why is that? 


Hittman: It's a critical film because we reside in a nation where it's so hard to get access to our reproductive rights, which are our Constitutional rights. And I don't think ladies should have to suffer.