Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

We meet Oli, 15 and eight months pregnant, as she gets ready for school and asks her Ukrainian immigrant mother for the car keys. Refused, she walks through her small town as people gawk from their cars. Near the train tracks, police tape marks a tragedy: a classmate has died by suicide. At school, the principal has no good answer. Instead, the principal suspends her because of her pregnancy. We flash back to Oli and her best friend Miriam preparing for a house party, revealing their lack of sex ed. While Miriam sneaks off with her boyfriend, Oli rejects an older boy, Steve, and defends Toby, a kind boy being bullied. The two are pushed into a garage, where Oli confesses her crush, and their tender moment leads to sex.

In the present, Oli no longer goes to school. Steve tells her that God saved him from sleeping with her. A kind religious camp counselor, Eli, tells her to check out their camp for teen moms. In a flashback, Oli and Miriam learn Oli is pregnant and scramble for options. A librarian who sells drugs refuses them abortion pills, so they plan for Oli to go to New Mexico, where she’d have more choices. But Miriam never shows at the bus stop. Her parents caught her, and the town, including Oli’s mother, finds out. In the aftermath, it becomes clear Oli will keep the baby, with her mother’s support. In the present once again, Oli decides to blackmail Miriam into helping her find Toby, who has disappeared ever since the news of Oli’s pregnancy broke. She plants a condom among Miriam’s belongings.

In the past, Oli struggles with the community’s reaction to her pregnancy and, in a moment of desperation, tries to harm herself. Her mother stops her, revealing she once considered aborting Oli but chose not to. Believing the community saved her from a toxic life in Ukraine, she tolerates their judgment, frustrating Oli, who storms off. Back in the present, Miriam gives in to Oli’s blackmail and lets her search for Toby on her laptop—no luck. She suggests trying his family’s ice cream shop, but when she attempts to reconcile, Oli rejects her. 

Oli spots Toby, but his father intercepts her and tries to pay her to leave. Pushed to the brink, Oli considers jumping in front of a train, instead unleashes her anger on Main Street. Toby reappears, he’s been trying to find a way back to her and feels guilty for disappearing. The movie ends with Oli and Toby reconciling and leaving town together.