For much of film history, characters who chose to get an abortion were treated with tragic endings for their “moral failings.” Saint Frances and Never Rarely Sometimes Always are recent dramas that explore the termination of a pregnancy with a sense of empathy missing from previous films. The modern abortion drama aims to reframe the choice to have an abortion as not a question of morality, but rather the personal. Comedies about abortion seek to normalize the decision in the first place, to the point where we as an audience can find humor in the process.
Unpregnant comes in the footsteps of comedies like Obvious Child. While Obvious Child follows a grown woman with complete access to an abortion, Unpregnant features 17-year-old Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) being forced to travel over a thousand miles to find an abortion clinic that will perform the procedure without parental consent. Unpregnant’s title seems to be a nod to the recent anti-abortion drama, Unplanned , making the title hilariously meta for those in on the joke.
In a movie that could be described as a cross between Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Thelma and Louise, the film most resembles Booksmart in its embrace of a progressive message, bright cinematography, and, above all else, a message of the importance of friendship. The movie would not be the same without the addition of Veronica’s ex-best friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira), who helps Veronica on her journey to terminate her pregnancy and serves as the comedic anchorage of the film. In a journey from Missouri to Arizona, the two teenagers sip on slurpees (half blue raspberry, half cherry, with a few squirts of Coke), befriend a conspiracy theorist, and even escape a crisis pregnancy center.
As the teens drive through the deserts of the Southwest, they pass an anti-same sex marriage billboard, and immediately after pass a billboard that advertises a “Gentlemen’s club” with “Hot young girls! Barely 18.” The two girls squat in the shadow of the latter to use as a road-side toilet. This moment is a perfect example of the implicit humor the film leans into. The PG-13 rating results in jokes that can’t be quite as crass as they may be funny. Still, the rating choice is smart as it vastly expands the audience this film is accessible for.
The filmmakers clearly paid attention to habits of teenage girls in crafting this journey. Social media stalking, shouting the lyrics to an old pop song with friends, and buying kitschy sweatshirts from a roadside gas station are all things I remember from my teenage years. Some elements attempting to relate come off as trying too hard, such as Veronica’s personal use of social media, but the film mostly succeeds in its attention to detail when it comes to representing teenage girls. As for the genre of a “teen comedy” itself, the film struggles to overcome common tropes within it.
The core of the film is Bailey and Veronica’s friendship. Bailey is treated as a complex character in her own right. Instead of reducing her to a silly friend that merely exists for the protagonist’s development, Bailey’s character is developed just as much as Veronica’s. A scene that embodies this is when the two girls shout their respective secrets as they twirl on a carnival ride; Bailey shouting about her love for girls, and Veronica shouting about her pregnancy. Another scene that stands out is Bailey’s first kiss at the same carnival, set to Maggie Roger’s “Alaska.” As great as their chemistry is, the film does struggle when it comes to developing a conflict between the two leads. It’s fuzzy as to what exactly resulted in their friendship breakup, and the attempts to articulate the reasons come far too late in the film. But the movie still treats a friendship ending like any other breakup and grants it the intensity it deserves.
The film depicts the abortion with empathy and realism. A highlight is Veronica’s impassioned rant of the obstacles she’s having to overcome in order to get her abortion. The extreme circumstances that these two girls have to go through compound at this moment. Veronica articulates her frustration, questioning why she has to get parental permission to end her pregnancy, but no consent is needed from her parents to become a mother in the first place. She ends her rant with a cry of “Fuck you Missouri State Legislature!”. Though this film is a comedy, it doesn’t hesitate to touch on the difficulties faced by those without access to proper reproductive healthcare.
The only moment Veronica’s choice is interrogated is in one of the most complicated moments of the film, when Veronica faces her conservative mother after having the procedure. Her mom merely states: “It’s not the choice I would’ve made.” The filmmakers assume that we as an audience have come to this film with an open mind about abortion, that we as an audience are more interested in viewing a humorous depiction of how a young woman navigates a choice in a state where abortion is heavily regulated than debating abortion itself. The film seems to tell us, it’s been almost 50 years since Roe V. Wade passed; we have to start pushing the abortion movie narrative.
3.5/5 STARS