Spontaneous
Brian Duffield has made the perfect movie for people who hate that they love teen rom-coms. Working from a novel by Aaron Starmer, Duffield delivers constant laughs and buckets of blood in the wildly unpredictable Spontaneous — a film truly unlike any other.
Starring Katherine Langford (13 Reasons Why) as the bold and confident Mara Carlyle, Spontaneous introduces a world where high school seniors are inexplicably exploding without warning. As teens continue to "pop like a zit," Mara begins to fall for Dylan (Charlie Plummer, Lean on Pete), an outsider with a heart of gold and a mind full of movie references. The pair has no idea who will be the next to die, so they do their best to make the most of their time together. Did I mention that people explode? A lot of people.
Mara serves double duty as the main character and the film's narrator. Both she and Dylan break the fourth wall regularly to engage the audience with memories and witty asides that help us better understand their motivations. This approach also provides an opportunity to emphasize many classmates' significances by explaining their connections to the leads.
While the body count rises and adults in various positions of power seek solutions, Mara and Dylan grow closer. The disease killing their classmates awakens them to the fact that nothing is promised in life. The dreams they had about college and what might happen as they age are irrelevant, leaving both free to live fully in the moment. They do what they said they eventually would, and try what they told themselves they someday might. For the first time in their lives, Mara and Dylan allow themselves to feel everything. The inspirational message here is obvious, but it works because it never feels heavy-handed in its delivery. The film chooses instead to focus on fun, blood and chaos in a small town.
Spontaneous benefits greatly from the way that death looms over every event in its story. Unlike Final Destination and other horror franchises where death is a thing that people are trying to outwit or escape, there’s no clear path to survival in this film. Characters die in the blink of an eye. Each bursting body changes the trajectory of the story, as well as the lives of everyone involved. The madness, though isolated to one school in one town, feels consuming. You're as much a lucky survivor as you are a distant viewer, anxiously waiting and hoping to learn whether or not the people you care about make it out alive.
As much as it dares to do something new, Spontaneous does follow the same YA blueprint that has been utilized in recent years by films such as The Fault In Our Stars and Five Feet Apart. But rather than succumb to the familiarity of it all, the film carries a level of self-awareness that helps separate the story enough to make it all feel fresh.
Mara and Dylan are well aware of the moments they're in that feel ripped from other films, which adds another layer of humor to the proceedings without making the film an outright comedy. People say and do silly things, but there’s plenty of heart, too. Some of it may be covering the walls, floors, and bodies of various characters, but trust me: there’s plenty of heart to go around.
Langford and Plummer deliver perfect performances, but Duffield stands out as the film's star. His ability to provide big laughs alongside anxiety-inducing horror and sugary-sweet romance is something to admire. Spontaneous comes the closest any film can to having something for everyone, which itself is impressive, but to consider that it accomplishes that while boasting the highest body count of the year with enough blood to fill a swimming pool is flat-out sensational.
Grade: A. Rated R. Available to rent via Amazon Video, iTunes, and other streaming services
(Photo: Paramount Pictures)
