“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.
Butler's Cinema Scene 