Unpregnant: A Topography of Autonomy and Friendship Reclaimed on the Road

We often encounter unexpected companions at the most bewildering junctions of our lives. When past intimacy has curdled into estrangement, the moment of facing one another again resembles the process of reclaiming lost fragments of one’s own self.

Director Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s Unpregnant moves beyond a simple journey toward abortion rights; it utilizes the road movie format to portray, with both lightness and sharp insight, how two women become each other’s existential shields within an oppressive social system.

Rather than focusing on the destination, this work centers on the shared gazes, silences, and the density of exploding emotions along the way, questioning the true meaning of solidarity for modern women.

📋 Essential Data

🏚️ The Vast Road as Interior Visualization and Veronica’s Psychological Seclusion

The starting point for an Unpregnant interpretation is the psychological space of Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson), who is trapped in perfectionism. For a top student dreaming of the Ivy League, an unexpected pregnancy is a disaster that crumbles her fortified walls.

The 1,000-mile journey she chooses, from Missouri to New Mexico, is a physical movement to escape oppressive legal regulations and, simultaneously, a psychological voyage to liberate a self that had been mortgaged to the gaze of others.

💭 The open highway visualizes the bleak solitude Veronica feels, and the only rift—and salvation—on that road is Bailey (Barbie Ferreira), once her closest friend. The spatiality of the empty road paradoxically serves as a mise-en-scène that highlights the close relational density between the two.

⚖️ Tension Woven from Class and Ambivalence: The Relationship of Veronica and Bailey

The Veronica and Bailey relationship and orientation possesses complex layers that cannot be reduced to the simple word “friendship.” Between Veronica, who strives to meet social expectations, and Bailey, an outsider who has built her own world, flows a tension of long-standing misunderstanding and odi et amo.

Throughout the journey, they criticize and disappoint each other regarding their choices, yet in decisive moments, they become shields protecting one another from the entire world. 💔 In particular, the emotional clash that erupts during the struggle for their rights replaces the heavy theme of bodily autonomy with an individual existential struggle.

✨ The unrestrained survival instinct shown by Bailey creates a crack in Veronica’s obsessive interior; consequently, the two women finally shed the frame of the “good girl” and come to fully affirm each other’s raw selves. The resolution of these ambivalent emotions forges a tighter relational density.

📽️ Metaphorical Meaning in Mise-en-scène and the Symbolic Integration of the Unpregnant Ending

The Unpregnant ending places more weight on the altered positions of the two in their returned daily lives than on the act of reaching the destination and completing the procedure. The director uses the contrast between the tacky carnivals encountered during the trip and the vast desert as a metaphor for the reality of women deprived of their autonomy.

⭐ “My body is my own, and I decide my path.”

This attitude, which permeates the work, offers a powerful implication for modern women contemplating survival in solitude. Within the pressure of conservative communities and the tyranny of power, the act of not letting go of each other’s hands becomes, in itself, the most “profane and radiant” resistance. On a sociological level, this film successfully demonstrates how individual pain can be transformed into a social voice through solidarity.

🖋️ Closing: Is There a Companion Willing to Take the Wheel in Your Voyage?

In the face of life’s unexpected storms, we often feel alone. However, as Veronica and Bailey did in Unpregnant, we might find our most truthful selves on the most unfamiliar roads.

What kind of courage did the dazzling road trip of these two women, breaking through social taboos, give you? If you have a memory of “that person” who stood by you without any conditions during the most difficult moment of your life, please share it in the comments.

👉 Reader Question: Did your heart move more toward Veronica‘s choice or Bailey‘s devotion? Or do you believe their journey is a different form of “love” that transcends simple friendship?

🎬 Violet Screen’s Curated Recommendations

If you wish to delve deeper into profound female solidarity and proactive journeys, I recommend the following works:

• [Booksmart]: A narrative of the bold escapades and the burning friendship of best friends on the eve of graduation.
• [Never Rarely Sometimes Always]: A profound solidarity flowing through silence; a quiet yet intense struggle of two girls for bodily autonomy.