SPONTANEOUS (2020)

SPONTANEOUS (2020)

Tagline:  An Explosive Love Story

(Comedy, Romance, Misery) [R]

In this one, we get the story of a high school senior class where kids start randomly exploding. Like all over the freakin place. The story is told from the perspective of a reckless alcoholic who is a horrible friend named Mara (played by Katherine Langford probably best known for her role in KNIVES OUT). What is causing this? Is there a cure? And who will survive?

First off, if you watch the preview for this, it’s actually got one of the more interesting and bizarre premises of all the 2020 movies. It looks funny and even inspiring. Unfortunately, this movie isn’t any of that for the vast majority of its runtime. It starts out at a pretty breakneck and pretty funny speed and feel. Humor is thrown into a pretty dark situation to make this movie watchable. 

Acting-wise Katherine Langford is fantastic. I haven’t seen her outside of KNIVES OUT, but her character here is well-played. The downside however is that the script and the character both suck. Mara is the last person I would want to be around if my class was exploding. Her friend Tess however (played by Hayley Law) is actually extremely likable and is a person I would want to be around. Sadly the movie doesn’t focus on that, it’s more wrapped around the romance between Mara and Dylan (played by Charlie Plummer). Plummer is great in this flick, but again the whole thing unfortunately is sucked into the vortex of oblivion by a Debbie Downer plotline loaded with self-loathing and misery. This damn thing is also loaded with so many unnecessary F-bombs and just full-blown vitriol that it dissects any chance at enjoying this movie after the first 30 minutes or so. 

I was wondering after seeing what looked like a promising preview why no one was talking about this movie. I mean, I keep my fingers on the moving going pulse the best I can, and from the time this came out till now, no one brought it up. It’s possible the timing with the virus hitting the US in 2020, that it was too close to home, but even now that we are out of the pandemic (technically we are in the endemic stage), this effort is still pretty damn rough. 

The script fails in just about every imaginable way possible even if the purpose was just to get us back out there enjoying life. There are a million ways to tell that story better. This film offers no solution to its problem, it offers no cause to its problem, it offers no assurance after presenting the problem, and the little light at the end of the tunnel we do see oddly seems to point to the fact that Mara is planning to get somewhere in life, with the end goal being almost completely pointless. I don’t want to give away too much here, but if there is such a thing as trying to put a bow on a disaster of a movie.  That is how this thing ends…only the bow is jacked out. I mean, it’s not even a bow you would put on a present your worst enemy. 

Does SPONTANEOUS have its moments, yes. The first 30 minutes are pretty great… but even that has some really stupid stuff in it that takes away from how good it could have been. 

For me, this is a 2 out of 7. Not something I can recommend anyone, especially someone in high school or battling substance abuse ever watch. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF AWESOMENESS FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Because no one should die buttonless.