Instead of turning their journey into a bleak tragedy or a quest with overt themes of resilience, hope, and camaraderie between women, Hittman focuses on the small moments of tension and terror.
“Did it hurt?” asks Skylar after her cousin Autumn Callahan finally gets an abortion. She says it didn’t.
Of course, even when the cousins make it to the city, it’s still not that easy. Because the procedure takes several days, they’re forced to sleep at bus terminals and on the subway. When they run out of money, Skylar decides to call up Jasper, an over-eager, borderline pushy suitor from the bus ; the three flit around the city in the middle of the night before Skylar ultimately asks to borrow funds.
The most heartbreaking detail, of course, comes shortly before Autumn’s abortion. A counselor asks Autumn questions in quick succession. Does her partner refuse to wear a condom? Does her partner push her for sex when she doesn’t want to have it? She’s instructed to respond with one-word answers—never, rarely, sometimes, or always—but eventually, Autumn stops answering. We’re forced to look at her, exhausted and blinking back tears for the first time in the film, and fill in the blanks.
#cf_5 .cf-btn:after { border-radius: 0px } .cf-content-wrap, .cf-form-wrap{ padding:5px; } div#cf_5 { margin-bottom: 20px; } .cf-content-text.cf-col { padding-left: 20px;padding-right:20px; } convertforms.cf-success .cf-response { background-color: #e9007b; display: block; } When the film ends, viewers might feel tired, as if—like Autumn—they just experienced 48 hours of up-all-night unease. But there’s still so much work to do, and with abortion clinics closing around the country and Roe v.
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