Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Girl sprouts tentacles. Oh, well.
Relax — that’s not a true spoiler. Only if you went into Spring thinking it to be a romantic drama would you be surprised by its turn toward the fantastical, yet with the word “MONSTER” appearing on the poster and box art, the movie marks its route with GPS-confident clarity. Besides, Drafthouse Films doesn’t actively recruit viewers of three-hanky weepies; Nicholas Sparks can take care of that bunch.
Spring isn’t really about alien appendages as much as it is about atmosphere — particularly the kind in which Italy is soaked, like crusty bread drizzled with olive oil and vinegar at your neighborhood Johnny Carino’s. The boot-shaped European republic is where Evan (Lou Taylor Pucci, 2013’s Evil Dead remake) flees after his mother dies and he loses his job, all in short order. Certainly aimless and close to hopeless, he is in sad-sack shape when he meets local woman Louise (German actress Nadia Hilker), stunning to the point of seemingly unattainable.
Yet she is up for grabs — for deliberate chunks of time, anyway; she’s just adamant about not getting serious. Evan can’t help but be smitten, of course, so it’s too late when he learns her reasons for staying unattached. The revelation gives Spring its biggest scene — one with practical effects so realistic-looking, one is reminded of the groundbreaking (and Oscar-winning) transformation of David Naughton into An American Werewolf in London.
Fresh from contributing the liveliest segment to the V/H/S: Viral anthology, co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead give Spring the same sober treatment as their 2012 feature debut, Resolution, which is to say imagination trumps energy. These guys thrive on digging into the details — not just those inherent in the Italian countryside, but the mundane unrestricted by geographic boundaries, from a lizard poised motionless on a wall to a spider rolling a fly into its next meal. This they do very well, lifting their plainspoken stories into a realm that doesn’t ask for your attention, but rewards you for ceding it. —Rod Lott