The biggest choice in life is that there is no choice and forced choice.
The film "Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always", screened at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin Film Festival, tells the story of Othum, who learns of an unexpected pregnancy, accompanied by her cousin, and two girls embark on a journey to the Abortion Clinic in New York, a 17-year-old girl who experiences the pain of youth, in order to break the gender powerlessness and social oppression to prove her growth.
The film focuses on an ordinary American small town girl, Otum, around Otum's changes after learning that she is pregnant, and truly portrays the simple sensitivity and helpless cowardice of a 17-year-old girl. This kind of "independence" that American minors must experience is a part-time life of a convenience store cashier while going to school, and it is an indifferent lack of communication in family relations.
The only man in the family of four in the film is a nearly incompetent, irresponsible father who needs to wear a coat under his wife's care, perfunctorily a father at the request of his wife, with a satirical "encouragement" to fail the game!!!
In the interaction with the dog in front of the child, he laughed and said the teasing of the insulting "little slut", and after being stopped by his wife, he said that women love to hear such words, and a state of contempt for women with discrimination was written.
The film shows a gender dilemma, there is a gender pressure between male and female interaction, an invisible confrontation and inequality is unconsciously displayed. The depression and powerlessness in between, along with the appearance of each male in the movie, are lightly taken by a few minutes. But it profoundly affected the two girls.
In the face of the superiority of his father's inaction, Othum said a rebellious curse, Otem, who participated in the competition and was constantly teased by strange boys, chose to pick up a water cup and splash it on the boy's head, the hospital was driven out of the door by the security guard, the subway encountered a middle-aged man who stared at the two men in suits and shoes with bad intentions, the bus showed goodwill to touch the strange boy who wanted contact information, and the middle-aged clerk peeking outside the door.
The constantly changing scene development and the stranger who intersect in the open state, this process is adjusted by the plan caused by environmental and human factors, which promotes the information volume of the film's development. Emotionally supported cousins, men we meet, parents who fled, etc., from the beginning of the movie we follow Otem all the way on the road, to a destination to get on the bus again, to find the girl's own life, to experience her growth.
This escape to London is a rebellion against life, vomiting is her life, the banknotes returned to the subway station, looking upwards helplessly. Some unconscious sexual metaphors in the film, red marks tightened on the shoulder straps of underwear, young boys who unconsciously extend the hand of desire.
"Do you wish you were a man?" On Otem and his cousin are a young girl who has flowered and withered and a girl who is waiting to bloom. Wanting to escape the pressure of being directed, Otem, who rejects men's subconscious fears, wanders aimlessly through the city of New York, eventually seeing his cousin kissing the boy behind a pillar on the subway.
Otterum silently took his cousin's hand and gave the girl who was in contact with the opposite sex for the first time and explored love with panic and uneasiness a firm response and support.
Behind the film is more to reflect the current situation of women in the 21st century, is facing some "slut humiliation" discrimination in society, some pseudo-feminist remarks. Sex is a way to relieve stress, a way for women to prove their worth, and to choose equality to determine their own embodiment.
After reading the "abortion is murder" complaint in the anti-abortion propaganda, the first thing He did when he returned home was to punch his lower abdomen in the mirror. Otem's repressed self-mutilation is pathetic about not being able to control his womb.
Music as a clue connects Othum's life and the direction of the movie, the movie begins to sing guitar at the competition, the bus talks about boys who like "live music", and once again meets the boy KTV who wants to date his cousin and talk about music.
At the beginning of the film, Otem talks about the failure of guitar singing at the beginning of the competition, a repressed girl confesses but no one listens seriously, does not reconcile with her family, and the phone call to her mother who collapsed before the abortion just wants to listen to her mother's voice for comfort and restrain her sad dumbness.
The film does not forcibly instill ideological deliberately to promote feminism, the rise of sexual consciousness Ofum wants to independently decide his body to go to the abortion clinic in New York, the social worker conducts preoperative interviews with young girls, and the social worker mechanically programmatically raises a string of questions about Autom's safety concerns.
The social worker asks: Has your sexual partner used condoms over the past year? Has your sexual partner ever threatened or intimidated you? Has your sexual partner ever hit you, slapped you, or caused other physical harm? Has your sexual partner ever forced sex with you against your will? Othum replied suppressively, "Never, rarely, sometimes, always."
The title of the film, "Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always," is the answer to these four questions. A teenage girl working as a cashier at a convenience store cannot embrace her gender and family to live the way she wants to be. Sequin eyeshadow and guitar are her defenses, multiple self-examinations in the mirror, eyes from the face to the fat pregnant belly, silent crying and pounding her stomach hard, herself in front of the mirror on the fire to disinfect and painfully hit the nose nail hole with a pin.
The film uses an almost restrained mood, the tone is cold and the saturation is low, the narrative is single-line blank, and the emphasis is on the depiction of Otem rather than the expression of opinions. A kind of confusion and powerlessness are revealed, and a social landscape of indifference and exclusion is outlined.
Questioned by various identity staff, Otem has confirmed his social occupation with "safe" and "healthy" status many times, and Otem has repeatedly and different staff members explained his voluntary surgery, name, age and place of residence in his information.
For a seventeen-year-old girl, this is a disguised torture from society, a nurse with a gentle female voice but a mechanized nurse who only completes the questions within her own work.
Lack of care and empathy in interpersonal communication, society again and again to confirm only to make this girl more vulnerable, Otem is always on the road alone, forced to do multiple choice questions Otem has his own answers, calmly and self-sustaining to make himself strong.