“SPRING” My rating: B (Opens March 20 at the Alamo Drafthouse)
109 minutes | Np MPAA rating
For about 15 minutes “Spring” looks like it’s going to be a searing psychological study of a young man who has just lost his mother to a terrible disease.
Then it becomes the story of that same young man on the run from the law and his adventures in Italy, where he lives the life of a backpacking tourist.
He meets a girl, and then it becomes a love story.
And then, 30 minutes in, like a sucker punch out of nowhere, “Spring” turns into one of the weirdest (and weirdly affecting) horror stories encountered in many a full moon.
Gotta give credit to the writing/directing team of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead — they may occasionally fumble one of the many balls they’re trying to keep up in the air, but their ambition seems to have no limits. Here they move from the utterly realistic to the spectacularly fantastic in a heartbeat.
And if the supernatural elements they have concocted seem far fetched, those lapses are balanced against two terrific performances and a tonal palette that is erotic, mysterious and genuinely moving.
Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker
Mourning the death of his mother, California cook Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci…one of those familiar faces whose name nobody remembers) gets involved in a bar fight and decides it’s time to get out of Dodge. He packs the bare essentials and flies to Italy, where he joins other young wanderers drinking their way down the scenic coastline.
In an ancient clifftop town he meets the gorgeous Louise (Nadia Hilker), a grad student doing genetic studies on the local homogenous population. They hit it off and Evan decides to stay, going to work for a white-haired olive farmer (Francesco Carnelutti).
Louisa is smart, sexy, funny — and noncommittal. Turns out she has reason to avoid deep attachments — like the fact that she outlives her lovers by hundreds of years.
No, “Spring” isn’t a vampire story, though Louisa’s condition bears a few resemblances to that of the undead (like nude midnight forays in search of fresh meat).
What makes “Spring” so intriguing is that it avoids the psychological silliness underpinning most horror films. Louisa and Evan are played so realistically, with such full and intriguing emotional breadth, that audiences will be sucked in well before the supernatural rears its ugly head. Think of it as a relationship movie with a surprise inside.
Plus, the film is gorgeous to look at (Moorhead is the cinematographer), lovingly taking in the old buildings, sun-dappled orchards, and crashing waves. There are a couple of aerial sequences (clearly made with expertly controlled drones) and a long tracking shot through the winding streets that are mesmerizing.
In the end there may be more style that substance at work here — but it’s pretty great style.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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