Spontaneous (2020)

As long as we recognize Lucas is washed up and most TV sucks, we'll all get along fine.
Post Reply
Leisher
Site Admin
Posts: 65258
Joined: Thu May 20, 2004 9:17 pm
Contact:

Spontaneous (2020)

Post by Leisher »

Kids begin exploding at a high school. Just a pop and blood spray. Nobody can figure out why. During this all, a girl meets a boy and they fall in love.

Katherine Langford plays Mara who is an edgy high schooler that is political, all about her best friend, and shuns chasing boys. Charlie Plummer is Dylan, her love interest. They are the best part of the film. (Aside from the popping people.) I thought they had solid chemistry and both acted very well.

However, the overall message of the film is both good and shit. The message is that life happens and you shouldn't live in fear. Just live life to its fullest every day. The popping people, FYI, were obviously school shooting victims. Get it? Some condition that the government just can't solve, and sometimes happens, but goes in lulls without happening and then a bunch at once. Not too subtle.

The director/writer, Brian Duffield, clearly wanted to make his politics known as there are two Trump jokes, at least one Republican joke, and Christians show up to protest the deaths (think Westboro Baptist Church). The best friend is black, one of the jocks is gay, the lead FBI agent is a black woman, the principal is a black man, the main teacher shown is a black man, and the lead scientist is a white woman. Diversity! But I guess not enough equality for one of the main characters to be a minority or different sex? Oh, he also mocks the intelligence and high testosterone of the jocks, although he doesn't portray them as villains. Make of that what you will. And maybe this was all stuff in the novel that this film is based on? To his credit, he also wrote The Babysitter, which I loved. Unfortunately, he also wrote Underwater, which was one of the worst movies ever made. He also wrote Love & Monsters, but I haven't seen that yet.

I enjoyed the movie, maybe because of the performance of the leads. I know others thought it was a boring film, and I get that. Others still were turned off by the politics, which I also understand. I definitely wouldn't recommend it, but I didn't hate seeing it.
“Every record been destroyed or falsified, books rewritten, pictures repainted, statues, street building renamed, every date altered. The process is continuing day by day. History stops. Nothing exists except endless present in which the Party is right.”
Post Reply