With Her Latest Film, Writer/Director Eliza Hittman Takes a Searing Look at Reproductive Rights

In her 2013 debut feature, "It Felt Like Love," writer/director Eliza Hittman established a visually compelling, emotionally resonant cinematic style. With 2017's queer-themed "Beach Rats" she upped her game as a fascinating storyteller daringly depicting the damaging results of repression and homophobia. "Beach Rats" won a slew of accolades including awards for Hittman's screenwriting (Sundance) and her directing (OutFest).

She's recently directed some episodic TV ("13 Reasons Why," "High Maintenance").

Earlier in the year her third film, "Never Rarely Sometimes Always," premiered at Sundance to critical raves and was released on VOD, because of COVID. The film ups her own narrative ante as she goes back to an idea she had even before she made her first film.

In the autumn of 2012, a 28-year-old Irish dentist, Savita Halappanavar requested an emergency abortion after complications set in during her pregnancy. She was denied and, as a result, contracted sepsis and died. This devastated Hittman and she set on a journey to tell a story that would reflect the difficulties involved in obtaining an abortion.

In "Never Rarely Sometimes Always," 17-year-old Autumn (Sidney Flanigan) discovers she is pregnant. We are never privy to who the father is (although there are two strong candidates), but we do know she has no desire to have the child. With the help of her understanding cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder), the two set out for New York City, via bus, where they encounter complications aplenty trying to obtain an abortion.

The title refers to possible answers to questions Autumn's social worker asks her – some quite personal.

EDGE spoke with Hittman, right before the film's release.

How did the film come to happen?

EDGE: Can you speak about the genesis of the film as well as the script's development and why now was the right time to make it?

Eliza Hittman: I started thinking about the story In 2012 when Savita Halappanavar passed away in Ireland after being refused a life-saving abortion. And I just started educating myself... and one thing that I discovered was that women would travel from Ireland all the way across the Irish sea to London and back in one day. And I just thought the idea of this journey was so compelling... there was a story (there) that hadn't been told before... I initially wrote a treatment for the film, that was set in Ireland... It was about two au pairs who are foreign but living in Ireland...

I was making small micro-budget work at the time, largely movies that were shot in my parents' basement. I just decided it wasn't very practical... Then I wrote a treatment that was set in rural Pennsylvania about a pregnant teen and began to explore what that journey looks like for many women in the United States who are forced to travel from rural areas to urban areas. And I started to take that project out and pitch it in 2013 and I didn't get an enthusiastic response to it... So I put it aside and I worked on "Beach Rats." But it was still inside me...

I premiered "Beach Rats" at Sundance in 2017, right after Trump has been inaugurated and it was clear that the freedom that women have in this country was going to be under attack. It was already limited, obviously, the access women had to reproductive care.

EDGE: Was the narrative always the way it ended up onscreen or did you have other journeys possible for Autumn and Skyler?

Eliza Hittman: It was always to New York and the journey always began in rural Pennsylvania. I think in an early treatment she might have been alone. And then I realized that wasn't quite as effective.

An unromantic NYC

EDGE: New York City is a very important character in the film and it's not necessarily the way we usually see the city portrayed.

Eliza Hittman: I'm a New Yorker and I am always really impressed with people who move here and can figure it out because I don't think it's intuitive at all. And I was thinking about their journey specifically and creating a really unromantic look at the city which is not the way people usually represent it on film. It's usually thrilling, exciting. It's usually full of inspiring energy. But I think that a lot of people from out of town don't actually experience it that way. It's a little bit of a hellhole. What was interesting to me was to explore these characters that are very much in a liminal space at all times. Port Authority is liminal. The bus is liminal, the subway, the waiting rooms. Really their only experience of New York is through Port Authority.

EDGE: As someone who frequents Port Authority, I got a new sense of what it is like to experience it.

Eliza Hittman: In my logic and in the script, they would think of it as a safe place because obviously it's cold out and that's another obstacle that they encounter. So it's warm and there's some stuff to eat and there's people around and security. It becomes a microcosm of the city. It's all they really experience outside the clinic.

Casting Sydney and Talia

EDGE: Sydney Flanigan and Talia Ryder are both remarkable in these roles. I know Sydney comes from the music world. What was it about these two actors that made you want to cast them?

Eliza Hittman: I met Sydney very briefly when she was fourteen. She was on the periphery of another film I was working on called, "Buffalo Joggalo."... She was just a kid growing up in south Buffalo and we followed her Facebook page and just watched her DIY music videos that she would make of herself alone in her bedroom. I thought they were captivating and they captured the bitterness of being a teenager. There was a strange chemistry and depth in her performances... I think that in casting I generally have an open mind and think that lots of different types of experience with performance translates into acting... And Sydney went to a big performance arts high school in Buffalo. She understands creative processes.

EDGE: And Talia?

Eliza Hittman: Talia had done "Matilda" on Broadway and when she came in to audition she had never done a film before and, coincidentally, she was from Buffalo, where Sydney's from. So there was this kind of spark that happened right when she walked in the room and introduced herself. And they immediately had things to talk about. We had actresses who had very different energies but that were complimentary. And, for me, (with) the character of Autumn, you needed to sense that she had a dark story inside her. And with Skyler, you needed to feel this kind of youthfulness and a sense of levity and optimism that enables them to take this journey.

Inside the film's most powerful scene

EDGE: How closely do you work with the actors. What is your process like?

Eliza Hitman: I think that, with this film in particular, the bond that you see onscreen between the two characters is the bond that I created between Sydney and Talia. We had a day and a half to rehearse, almost nothing. I had them come over to my apartment and I gave them each a marble notebook and inside were five writing prompts. And some of them were really personal and some were just about their lives and their experiences. And I let them write about themselves for a couple of hours. And I just left. And I told them I wanted them to share what was in their notebooks. So they had these couple of hours together where they revealed some really personal things about themselves and found a lot of common themes in their experiences. Just as people, not as characters. And I think that was really the most essential thing we did to prepare the film, because it gave them this secret history, to share onset, and this relationship that's deeper than anybody else has with them in the experience and the crew. I think that the connection onscreen is their connection.

EDGE: I wanted to discuss the 'Never Rarely Sometimes Always' scene where Autumn is asked a series of intrusively personal questions, because it is so powerful. And so invasive.

Eliza Hittman: Thank you. You know what's funny. Men find it invasive. Not women.

EDGE: Wow.

Eliza Hittman: Because I'm clocking the adjectives that people use to describe the scene and more men describe it as invasive than women. And I think it's because men never go through those types of counseling sessions, whereas every time a woman goes to the OBGYN or something, which is more frequently than most men go to the doctor, they encounter similar questions.

About "Beach Rats"

EDGE: How did you decide to shoot that scene the way you did?

Eliza Hittman: I had come off doing some television that was very stagey and I was intentionally trying to strip away a lot of elements that I find superficial about directing. And I wanted it to be as simple and powerful as possible. We always knew going into it that we would stage two cameras, so there's actually two cameras on Sydney. We only ended up using footage from one because it just worked. But there's one frontal that's pressed up against her and there's one three quarter profile on her. She was very much interrogated by the cameras. And it's the scene that I worked the hardest on and I spent a lot of time consulting with the social worker and then when it came time to cast that role I just ended up casting the social worker because I had just felt like I had developed the scene with her.

EDGE: "Beach Rats" is such a resonant queer film. I wanted to know why that story was important for you to tell.

Eliza Hittman: It's complicated. I grew up in a very homophobic household. The issues that the film deals with are not unfamiliar to me. And I got a lot of backlash for not being a man but I thought that was a little absurd because I could have easily been the younger sister in that household. Or any of the characters...I think issues around acceptance and sexual identity were very much part of my growing up.

"Never Rarely Sometimes Always" can be streamed on VOD platforms.

Watch the trailer: