Post by Dracula on Dec 12, 2020 19:36:02 GMT -5
Unpregnant(11/16/2020)
Unpregnant is a movie about a teenage girl who finds out she’s pregnant and, upon learning that she can’t get an abortion in her state without parental approval, goes on a road trip to get what should be a legal procedure. Observant film watchers will notice that in grand strokes this is almost the exact same plot as another movie from earlier this year, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, but where that was a somber indie drama Unpregnant is a road trip buddy comedy that appears to be more or less aimed at mainstream sensibilities even though it appears to have been heading straight to HBO Max rather than theaters even before the pandemic. That streaming release seems to have rather blunted its impact in much the way a lot of streaming releases just haven’t hit pop culture in the way that theatrical releases have despite potentially technically having more eyeballs on them. Truth be told I think this one might have had trouble getting eyeballs on it even under the best of circumstances as it doesn’t really have any major names in comedy in its cast or crew and is kind of part of a genre of comedy that’s dying off. It’s certainly not as funny or commercial as the similarly targeted Booksmart and even that movie sort of flopped at the box office. I would also note that this movie is perhaps a bit tame and PG-13 in terms of its comedy and is perhaps a bit lacking in major gut busting comic set-pieces or hooks that could have filled an audience attracting trailer.
All that having been said, I still think this deserved to have a bit more impact. Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira both have solid chemistry as the leads and the film is also reasonably well shot on what I assume was a low budget and finds some solid scenery from its North Texas/New Mexico locales. But more importantly it’s a nicely irreverent take on a pretty important subject, namely the way that local laws interfere in pretty serious ways with the rights of young women to choose and it makes this point about as effectively as Never Rarely Sometimes Always did albeit in a much different way and to a different kind of audience. I’d say that this message is going to be even more vital going into a post- Amy Coney Barrett world but the truth is that might be a bit of an understatement as we move into a world where laws like this are even more onerous and parental notification laws are the least of the pro-choice movement’s worries. With that in mind there’s a sort of melancholia over both of these movies because rather than ushering us slowly toward something better they almost seem like dim last gasps before things get much worse…. which is depressing, but I’m not going to hold that against the movies. They may have been too little too late as activism, but that doesn’t make them unengaging.
***1/2 out of Five
Unpregnant is a movie about a teenage girl who finds out she’s pregnant and, upon learning that she can’t get an abortion in her state without parental approval, goes on a road trip to get what should be a legal procedure. Observant film watchers will notice that in grand strokes this is almost the exact same plot as another movie from earlier this year, Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, but where that was a somber indie drama Unpregnant is a road trip buddy comedy that appears to be more or less aimed at mainstream sensibilities even though it appears to have been heading straight to HBO Max rather than theaters even before the pandemic. That streaming release seems to have rather blunted its impact in much the way a lot of streaming releases just haven’t hit pop culture in the way that theatrical releases have despite potentially technically having more eyeballs on them. Truth be told I think this one might have had trouble getting eyeballs on it even under the best of circumstances as it doesn’t really have any major names in comedy in its cast or crew and is kind of part of a genre of comedy that’s dying off. It’s certainly not as funny or commercial as the similarly targeted Booksmart and even that movie sort of flopped at the box office. I would also note that this movie is perhaps a bit tame and PG-13 in terms of its comedy and is perhaps a bit lacking in major gut busting comic set-pieces or hooks that could have filled an audience attracting trailer.
All that having been said, I still think this deserved to have a bit more impact. Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferreira both have solid chemistry as the leads and the film is also reasonably well shot on what I assume was a low budget and finds some solid scenery from its North Texas/New Mexico locales. But more importantly it’s a nicely irreverent take on a pretty important subject, namely the way that local laws interfere in pretty serious ways with the rights of young women to choose and it makes this point about as effectively as Never Rarely Sometimes Always did albeit in a much different way and to a different kind of audience. I’d say that this message is going to be even more vital going into a post- Amy Coney Barrett world but the truth is that might be a bit of an understatement as we move into a world where laws like this are even more onerous and parental notification laws are the least of the pro-choice movement’s worries. With that in mind there’s a sort of melancholia over both of these movies because rather than ushering us slowly toward something better they almost seem like dim last gasps before things get much worse…. which is depressing, but I’m not going to hold that against the movies. They may have been too little too late as activism, but that doesn’t make them unengaging.
***1/2 out of Five
