Movies alone won’t save us from the dark days that lie ahead in the United States. It is devastating and disheartening to live with the knowledge that half this country has lost access to their bodily autonomy — or at least made it negotiable on a state-by-state basis, something no one should have to worry about. And yet for those who believe in reproductive freedom, the Dobbs decision must be our beginning — because it is certainly not the end of the Supreme Court’s assault on liberty.
I’ve struggled a bit with words around the outlawing of legal abortion because, well, it affects me at a conceptual level rather than as the guttural personal reality it reflects for others. How can anything I say bridge that immediacy gap? I opt to yield the floor to listen and amplify those who can maintain clarity and rage in the moment, from organizers on the ground leading the way on action to journalists like Rebecca Traister focusing our attention:
“This stubborn belief in a kind of Forever Progress has undergirded a political message that there was nothing to worry about. It has prevented a proper understanding of this country’s history and its foundational power imbalances. And now it is the shattering of this belief that pulls people toward despair.
But despair is poison. It deadens people when the most important thing they can do is proceed with more drive and force and openness than they have before. Which is why the work ahead is insisting on hope, behaving as if there is reason for hope, even if you feel, based on the ample available evidence, that there is not.”
There has been plenty of storytelling over the 50-year reign of Roe v. Wade, accelerating in the last few years as the assault on its guarantees became clear, that reflect abortion for what it is. It’s a choice best left in the hands of a pregnant person empowering them, not the state, to chart their own destiny. It need not be a trajectory-altering detour or a life-defining moment. It can just be a plot point.
I know there are likely some reading this who do not share this belief. (If you’re reading this and scoffing at the idea, yes, there are some who can share your interest in movies — and they’re only unreachable if you continue to write them off as such.) I invite all to let the empathy machine of cinema place you in the shoes of someone faced with a concrete decision, especially if you've only experienced it as abstract, and see what elements of the past we want to become features of the future.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, Criterion Channel
There’s one non-American entry on this list, and it’s meant to demonstrate the banal terror of a regime where abortion is illegal in a time not too far away from our own. There will come a time soon when I’ll discuss the meaning of the form in Christian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days rather than just how it amplifies the content, which is about a woman in late Communist-era Romania seeking the outlawed procedure. Mungiu’s camera rarely flinches from its set position in any scene, rooting the terrifying journey to simply exercise one’s right over their own body in terms more realistic than cinematic.
Citizen Ruth, rental
This came recommended recently, so I’ll try to avoid reheating my previous commentary. Alexander Payne’s 1996 comedy Citizen Ruth satirizes what we only then thought was an intractable debate between camps of pro-forced birth and pro-personal choice. He neither “both sides” the issue nor lets anyone off the hook. The film shows how, in looking to score a political point by the decision of Laura Dern’s Ruth Stoops, each group fails the pregnant woman. Something for us all to keep in mind: we can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s people and their lives at stake here.
Dirty Dancing, rental
It’s easy to forget that the plot of Dirty Dancing hinges heavily on abortion because our cultural memory has flattened it to the passion of the lift. (Having said that, enjoy a brief moment of levity courtesy of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone’s re-creation from Crazy Stupid Love.) A supporting character’s need for the procedure, undergone unsafely, underscores the dangers of a pre-Roe world when it’s not available safely or legally. Her difficulty procuring the funds necessary to achieve it as well further emphasizes the class divides in a world where abortion access is not democratized. Enjoy the hot dancing as a bonus to pondering whether we’re ok with living in a country where a woman’s right to control her own body should be dependent on a generous wealthy benefactor like Jerry Orbach’s Dr. Houseman who just so happens to Get It ™️.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High, rental
I had seen Fast Times once before revisiting it in 2020 for my big Easy A anniversary piece on the high school movie (will never stop plugging it, sorry!) and fully did not remember one of the main characters having an abortion. I think the fact that it just fades into the tapestry of the film speaks to just how well director Amy Heckerling and screenwriter Cameron Crowe understand the way the procedure functioned in a world where it was a federally protected right for less than a decade. The character’s choice is simply one of many in the film, one that has plenty of impact and yet fades just like any other decision in one’s teen years. It need not knock the earth off its axis nor be a big Hollywood moment.
Grandma, Hulu
I recently watched Grandma for the first time since theaters and fell in love with Lily Tomlin’s fierce, flighty matriarch all over again. This brief story documents her journey over the course of a day when her granddaughter, circumventing her uptight mother, comes seeking the funds for an abortion. The film functions as a rejoinder to claims that family planning destroys the sancity of that very unit. In fact, the need to make clear-cut decisions as well as assert needs and boundaries brings three generations of women closer together.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Freevee via Amazon Prime Video (free with ads)
If you want a glimpse into what the immediate post-Roe future of America looks like for those with an unplanned pregnancy, it’s the poetic odyssey of Never Rarely Soetimes Always. The title of Eliza Hittman’s film derives from a sexual health questionnaire posed to teenage Autumn as she must scrounge together a trip from her native western Pennsylvania to New York City for an abortion. There’s a particular audience who Hittman believes needs to see and experience the scene and film, and I’ll quote from my interview with her in 2020:
“I think it’s important that men watching it are never in those rooms. And they’re never asked those questions. And I think when men watch the scene, they always talk about it as being really invasive, and women watch it and talk about it as being really empathetic.”
Obvious Child, Showtime Anytime and rental
There’s a quiet radicalism of Obvious Child. Gillian Robespierre’s comedy largely centers around the decision of Brooklyn stand-up Donna (Jenny Slate) to procure an abortion after sleeping with a charming man for the first time. But the procedure doesn’t come to define her character arc. In fact, she still gets to live out the rom-com storyline that far too many are told by anti-choicers they do not deserve. While it may feel like standard genre fare in the moment, the impact of the film hits later as it defies easy stigmatization.
Premature, Hulu
Of course the coming-of-age movie and the abortion drama would overlap some given the traditional age of the protagonist. Rashaad Ernesto Green renders this fertile period of growth and change for budding Harlem-based poet Ayanna (Zora Howard) with a similarly lyrical quality in Premature. Abortion is but a stop-off in her passionate summer romance (to my recollection, it’s the only film I can think of featuring medication rather than clinical procedure — an advance cinema should probably catch up with). The film shows Ayanna grapple with the repercussions of her decision with the kind of mixed emotions that are not unreasonable to expect following such a choice. But Green does not let pain or trauma overcome his film’s centering of Black love and tenderness.
Saint Frances, Starz Play and rental
If there’s one film on this list I’d recommend to someone truly struggling with their feelings about all this, it would be Saint Frances. There’s a gracefulness of touch and generosity of spirit to Alex Thompson’s humane indie comedy that extends an open embrace to anyone who just feels … lost. The film explores the millennial slacker trope (think Seth Rogen in Knocked Up) and recasts the figure as a woman, slyly pointing out the ways gender and age intersect to form expectations of people. Kelly O’Sullivan’s Bridget does explore abortion in the film, but that decision serves as only the beginning of her emotional exploration around what parenting and family really means. This is a film of great maturity and empathy around the different, roundabout ways we learn to care for one another — and how our structures and systems should enable people to arrive at this point from any direction.
The Surrogate, Tubi TV (free with ads)
I’m going to be strategically vague as to how abortion factors into the narrative of The Surrogate, a small-scale drama about a Black woman carrying the surrogate child for two progressive Brooklynite gay men. But suffice to say, it sparks necessary conversations around who controls reproductive care and the lack of consideration for the Black body in history and the present. Just watch knowing as little as I did going in, and brace yourself for many a riveting, provocative discussion.
You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd.
Not necessarily movie-related, but this episode of The Daily from over the weekend sure made me proud to be from Houston. The significant success that the city has had in curbing chronic homelessness is a real tribute to the cooperative, can-do spirit of the place that made me:
Also, one (1) good thing to come out of Elvis is a reminder of how much I like this song:
Here’s a good read from Alison Wilmore at Vulture tying together quite a few of the movies recommended above into a cohesive narrative: “Where Does the Abortion Thriller Go from Here?”
I had the opportunity to interview two filmmakers with new genre-inflected works: Flux Gourmet’s Peter Strickland for Slant and Apples’ Christos Nikou for The Playlist. Both films are worth your time for both ingenuity and execution alike. (If you're curious to learn more about Apples, I also reviewed it for Slashfilm back in 2020.)
I hope to be back in your inboxes later this week with a long-delayed piece — subscribe so you don’t miss it!
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall