Spontaneous: Film Review
A coming-of-age love story set against a backdrop of high school students inexplicably spontaneously combusting? I’m so here for it.
This sci-fi/fantasy/comedy/romance hybrid stars 13 Reasons Why’s Katherine Langford as Mara, who discovers that her classmate Dylan (Charlie Plummer) has a crush on her. After nursing this crush for a long time, he decides there’s no time like the present to pluck up the courage and try his luck considering his fellow seniors are exploding at random.
I was a huge fan of this concept. It is dark, certainly, but it lends itself to comedy too, and Spontaneous, when it is truly in its element, is witty, irreverent, and far smarter than your average teen movie. It is also more adult too, with many F-bombs and a ridiculous amount of blood (thankfully the combusting isn’t too gory). However, it loses its way around the hour mark. By its very nature, it is a bit repetitive – ‘Oh, another kid explodes!’ ‘Oh crap, there’s another one!’ – so I welcomed the change in the story at that point, but I felt that writer/director Brian Duffield didn’t really know how to wrap it up as well as he started.
Langford is absolute gold in this movie. She is charming, feisty and she has great lines to deliver with her quirky personality. Plummer is cute as hell and seriously likeable and their conversations were fun to watch – and that’s down to a very decent script. They are supported by Riverdale’s Hayley Law as Mara’s best friend Tess, Piper Perabo as Mara’s mum, and Rob Huebel as her dad.
I had a lot of fun with Spontaneous. The concept is cool, the leads are seriously charismatic, and it is highly entertaining.
Available to rent or download and keep via Apple TV, Prime Video, Sky Store, Google Play, and more from Monday 12th October