‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’: Read The Screenplay For Eliza Hittman’s Abortion Drama That Topped The Spirit Awards Nominations

EXCLUSIVE: Never Rarely Sometimes Always writer-director Eliza Hittman said she found inspiration for the Focus Features film in 2012, when she read about a woman who died after being denied a life-saving abortion.

“I started to wonder where would she have had to go? How far would she have had to travel to save her own life?” Hittman told Deadline during last year’s Sundance Film Festival. “I started reading about the journeys that women take to other countries and within America from rural areas into urban areas. It’s what’s insensitively coined abortion tourism. Her death was really the beginning of an extensive research process for me.”

The inaccessibility of safe abortions takes center stage in Hittman’s buzzy film, starring Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder. Never Rarely Sometimes Always follows teenager Autumn (Flanigan) who, with the help of her cousin Skylar (Ryder), travels from rural Pennsylvania to New York City to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

While the the film centers on the difficulty of accessible abortions, Never Rarely Sometimes Always also highlights the compassion and devotion between the story’s teenage leads. Singer Sharon Van Etten, Aurora Richards, Rose Elizabeth Richards and Ryan Eggold also star. Adele Romanski, Sara Murphy and Rose Garnett are producers.

Tthe film took home a U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award at Sundance and a Jury Grand Prix at the Berlin Film Festival. After scoring a Best Feature nom at the Gotham Awards, it led the way with the most nominations at this mornings Film Independent Spirit Awards.

Read Hittman’s script below.