How ‘Plan B,’ ‘Unpregnant,’ and Reproductive Road Films Are Responding to a Changing Political Landscape

Road trip movies have been a staple of Hollywood since John Wayne headed west in Stagecoach in 1939, and it’s easy to see why screenwriters are drawn to the tropes. Road trip movie characters have a built-in reason to meet interesting people, see interesting places, and engage in heart-to-hearts while trapped in a moving vehicle together. But every road trip movie needs a reason for its characters to hit the road in the first place: In Thelma & Louise, they’re on the run from the cops; in Dumb & Dumber, they’re returning a briefcase of money; in Little Miss Sunshine, they’re racing to get to a beauty pageant on time.

And recently, lawmakers in Congress have given screenwriters a new road trip plot device: Access to abortion. Screenwriters are taking notice, and thus, a new sub-genre has been born: the reproductive road trip. Take Plan B, a comedy directed by Natalie Morales, and written by Prathi Srinivasan and Joshua Levy, that began streaming on Hulu on Friday. The plot follows a teenage girl named Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) and her best friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles) on a chaotic quest to obtain the Plan B pill—a hormone pill that can prevent pregnancy if taken 24 hours after having unprotected sex—after a local pharmacist declines to sell Sunny the pill.

“You can’t do that!” Sunny protests.

“Yes I can,” the pharmacist responds with a condescending smile. “It’s a little thing called the conscience clause. Any medical professional in the great state of South Dakota can refuse to sell birth control drugs to someone if it goes against their beliefs.”

He’s not wrong. The “conscience clause” trend took off in the early 2000s, and South Dakota is one of six states that allow pharmacists to legally refuse to sell someone a Plan B pill. Sunny and Lupe decide to drive to the nearest Planned Parenthood for the pill instead. It’s only three hours away, but the clock is ticking—Sunny had sex the night before and needs to take the pill within that 24-hour window.

It’s not dissimilar to the premise of Unpregnant, another reproductive road trip comedy that premiered on HBO Max last year. In that film, 17-year-old Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) is forced to drive 14 hours in search of a clinic that will give her an abortion without requiring parental consent. Veronica’s parents are super religious, and her friends are super judge-y, so she recruits her stoner ex-BFF Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) to drive her. Then there’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the critically-acclaimed drama that takes a very different tone on the same predicament: 17-year-old Autumn Callahan (Sidney Flanigan) takes a bus from Pennslyvania to New York City to get an abortion without parental consent. She spends an uncomfortable night in the city with her cousin—effectively homeless—after she discovers she has to go to a different clinic that doesn’t open until the next morning.

All three of the above reproductive road films were released within 18 months of each other. Perhaps it’s not surprising that abortion access has suddenly become popular subject matter for coming-of-age stories. Over the past 20 years, anti-abortion politicians have been steadily chipping away at reproductive rights in the U.S. According to the New York Times, over 250 abortion clinics have closed nationwide since 2013, and more and more states are passing “heartbeat” bills, banning abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. Six states in the U.S. have only one abortion clinic. Just last week, the Texas state Senate passed a “trigger” bill that would immediately ban virtually all abortion if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which many think is likely to happen with six conservative justices on the bench. And more and more “Crisis Pregnancy Centers” are cropping up—non-profits run by conservative Christian groups that kinda, sorta seem like abortion clinics, but are actually intended to dissuade women from getting abortions, sometimes with false medical information.

It is, in other words, a pretty terrible time to be a young person with an unwanted pregnancy in the U.S. But all of the roadblocks teen girls face to getting an abortion make for pretty great plot conflicts. Plan B embraces the absurdity of these obstacles, including an R-rated scene where Sunny attempts to buy an oral contraceptive on the black market. One thing leads to another until Sunny is faced (quite literally) with the prospect of sucking a dude’s septum-pierced dick in exchange for a single Plan B pill. Obviously, it’s ridiculous. But there’s something radical about laughing at this situation that stems from a dark reality—that in some parts of the country, teen girls can’t just buy the Plan B pill when they need it.

Unpregnant, meanwhile, plays up the all-too-real threat of pro-lifers. In a brilliant scene where Veronica and Bailey accept the help of a young couple, the film veers into horror territory via a dramatic reveal that the couple is obsessively anti-abortion. As the girls flee—pursued by a man in a mobile Crisis Pregnancy Center shouting “medical advice” at them—you’re laughing in part because Unpregnant director Rachel Lee Goldenberg has hit on something real. It is massively creepy that pro-lifers are so invested in what teenage girls decide to do with their bodies!

Unlike Plan B and Unpregnant, writer/director Eliza Hittman doesn’t go for laughs in Never Rarely Sometimes Always. There’s nothing funny about 17-year-old Autumn Callaghan being shown an anti-abortion video at a crisis pregnancy center, then going home and punching herself in the stomach. When Autumn’s cousin kisses some random dude because they need money for a bus ticket home, and Autumn, knowing this, reaches out to hold her cousin’s hand, your heart breaks. Though the tone couldn’t be more different, the story is the same: These girls are desperate. They’re blocked at every turn. By Christian conservatives, by lack of abortion access, and by money.  And there’s no one they can turn to but each other.

It’s hard not to feel like this surging trope isn’t really a trope at all—it’s a reflection of a dark chapter in America’s history of healthcare. But maybe it’s a good thing. After all, the loss of reproductive rights is a reality that teenage girls are facing, and it’s only getting worse. Hollywood is responding in kind—and getting some great road trip movies out of it, too.

Watch Plan B on Hulu