The not-so-chipper premise of Eliza Hittman’s Sundance premiere Never Rarely Sometimes Always involves a teenage Pennsylvania girl and her cousin commuting to the Big Apple in order to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Viewers used to the seriocomic approach to the abortion flick (Obvious Child and Juno are probably the best examples of modern mainstream movies on the subject) may find Never Rarely Sometimes Always a startlingly somber and even oppressive affair, the film from Hittman shying away from any flirtation with taking the matter any less than extremely seriously at any given intersection. Not that most people associate abortions with a good laugh but, man, this movie is just about as unrelentingly unpleasant and heavy as they come.

The result is a hard-nosed movie with a light touch, one that feels deeply personal and empathetic, though its slow-paced, one-note procedural approach will likely leave many viewers wondering why they spent an hour and forty-one minutes closely watching the painstaking process of hitting the kill switch on a pregnancy. If this doesn’t sound like your idea of a good time (and, quite honestly, if it does, that’s more than a bit troubling) then you’re unlikely to “enjoy” Never Rarely Sometimes Always in the traditional sense. As such, it’s a movie that’s nearly impossible to recommend and certainly one I have no interest in watching again. That being said, it remains hard to deny the humanistic power and raw empathetic sentiment of the film. Hittman, who also wrote the film, kicks things off with a high school talent show performance. Autumn, played with withdrawn reservation by Sidney Flanigan, is the only one amongst her peers who displays a flicker of real talent. Crooning a soulful ballad and batting at her acoustic, Autumn’s lyrics evoking the vice grip immensity of young love. But her moment in the spotlight is interrupted when some douche in the darkened theater hollers, “Slut!” This is Autumn’s life in a nutshell.

Hittman suggests that this mystery douche might be the same scumbag will ultimately knocked Autumn up though, as we come to learn with just about everything in the film, there’s no confirmation one way or another. Never Rarely Sometimes Always exists in the space between certainty, with Hittman never presenting things as black and white, rarely giving us more context beyond the immediate circumstances that Autumn finds herself in, sometimes providing a deeper look into the inner lives of her characters, and always affording Autumn the right to make choices without judgment.

As empathetic as Never Rarely Sometimes Always is, it remains a viscerally challenging experience. One scene in particular made me cringe so hard that it was difficult to continue watching. As such, the film lurks around the swamp that is despair porn; it’s the type of movie that makes you sink into yourself and feel icky inside and out. For those taking notes at home, Jettman’s creation is much more 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (a powerful but deeply disturbing Romanian abortion drama) than the jovial dramedy of comediennes Ellen Page and Jenny Slate and, like with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, you’ll probably feel like taking a long hot shower after watching.

Flanigan is good in the role, particularly when she is being questioned by an assigned therapist in a heartbreaking scene, though Talia Ryder’s turn as her cousin Skylar remains the performance to beat; she is a beacon of caring in an otherwise bleak and unsupportive environment. Without her, the movie is arguably nihilistic, a pit of despair from which there is no beacon of hope or love. Pretty much every other character they encounter is scummy, gross and definitely wants to lick them.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Never Rarely Sometimes Always lies in the fact that this PG-13 rated movie speaks loudly and clearly to certain teenage populations, who would benefit most from seeing this. Despite its off-putting approach, or perhaps because of it, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is an up-close-and-personal sneak-peek into the logistical and emotional challenges of abortions, one that speaks to the hoops that need to be jumped through and all emotional trauma that terminating a pregnancy involves. And regardless of which side of the fence you’re on with the issue, it never hurts to display a little more empathy and that is in no short supply here.

CONCLUSION: ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’ focuses on the logistics of an abortion road trip as writer-director Eliza Hittman delivers an empathic and occasionally potent humanist drama that begs viewers to feel for its characters, though it can belabor the point a bit and become one-note in its tortured discomfort.