Spring (2014)

April 12, 2020 1:38 PM

A young man in a personal tailspin flees the US to Italy, where he sparks up a romance with a woman harboring a dark, primordial secret.

From Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, the directors of Resolution and The Endless, and loosely related to both movies (in the sense that all three start in Southern California, and have similarly weird, Lovecraftian themes).

Perhaps best described as "romantic body horror", I found Spring the most affecting and humorous of the three, but I'm interested to learn other Mefite's reactions.

posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul (3 comments total)

I loved all three movies. I love how Benson and Moorehead employ such a slow burn, such that their movies hardly have any explicit horror elements for the first 30 or so minutes, but then things ratchet up into the barely conceivable by the end. Spring really did feel like more a romance movie that happened to have horror in it than a horror film that had some romance in it, and that makes it unique. Nadia Hilker is super-charming in it—I had only ever seen her in The Walking Dead, where she plays a fairly generic badass cool chick. Highly recommended, though I think it comes in third for me in the B&M canon, for two reasons.

[ARE SPOILER ALERTS NECESSARY IN FANFARE? HERE’S ONE ANYWAY!]

The more minor thing is that the third act seems stretched out too long. Once Evan learns Louise’s true nature, they spend half an hour road tripping and matter-of-factly discussing the rules of her transformations. I know I just said I liked the slow burn, but this seemed more like an inordinate amount of time spent dissecting the mystery until it is no longer intriguing. Though this act does have some fun transformation moments!

Second, it is kind of infuriating that an amazing, unique, immortal woman, a walking miracle, would give up all of eternity just to be with some sad sack she met a week earlier. Like, Evan did not seem at all worth giving up eternal life, so the movie implicitly is saying “nothing can be more important to a woman than the love of a dude, even if he is kind of a loser.” Maybe I’m overthinking that! Would love to have my perspective changed.

Otherwise, great movie! Especially loved the Pompeii scene and Louise visiting her own portraits in the museum.
posted by ejs at 7:49 PM on April 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

I also didn't believe Louise would give up her immortality for Evan, but I think it works slightly better if you watch this movie and treat Louise as the main character.

But I still liked this overall.
posted by darksong at 9:12 AM on April 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

I was charmed by Evan (and even more by Louise) but agree with everyone else that he needs to be sooo much more for her to give up immortality for his love.

Regardless, I loved this. I wish all romance films could be this dark and twisted.

Feel like these directors are swiftly skewing my Letterboxd stats. More please.
posted by iamkimiam at 3:18 PM on July 4, 2021