In September, Hulu released No One Will Save You, Brian Duffield’s unnerving sophomore feature as writer-director. Much of the praise for the sci-fi thriller has revolved around its almost complete lack of dialogue, and justifiably so — it’s less a distracting gimmick than a natural result of a stripped-down story focused on the solitary life of an anxious young woman. But Duffield has shown his skill at writing clever, character-specific dialogue and directing an ensemble of naturalistic performers before: in his debut feature, a film adaptation of Aaron Starmer’s young-adult novel Spontaneous.
Paramount allowed Spontaneous a brief, limited theatrical release early in October 2020 while dropping the movie on video on demand the same week. But it feels like the type of genre-blending coming-of-age movie that could’ve been huge given the right platform and timing (ideally not half a year into a pandemic that shut down movie theaters). It’d even feel at home on a list of Netflix Original movies, alongside both teen romance adaptations like To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and violent dark comedies like The Babysitter (also written by Duffield). If there’s any justice in this world, it’ll achieve cult-classic status one day.
Spontaneous centers on Mara (Katherine Langford) and Dylan (Charlie Plummer), two seniors who fall in love at a high school where students begin spontaneously exploding one by one. It’s a bleak backdrop for a love story, especially when we continually see the very real fear on the faces of students and parents like Charlie (Rob Huebel) and Angela (Piper Perabo). But Mara and Dylan just enjoy spending time together, and Plummer’s infectious golden-retriever energy pairs perfectly with Langford’s class-clown sardonic riffing. And while the threat of one of them exploding is always there in the background, it doesn’t stop either of them from embracing something new. In fact, it’s that very fear that pushes them forward — like it pushed Dylan to take action and admit his crush in the first place.
The focus here isn’t so much on solving the origin of the “Covington Curseâ€; everyone speculates, but no one really expects a definitive answer. The script’s real area of interest is how a group of teenagers would respond to a scenario as uniquely bizarre and scary as this one. So much of the movie’s humor arises naturally from these circumstances and how deeply they would alter a realistic teenager’s daily experience of the world. Jokes become the most instinctive, believable way of dealing with the horror of the present reality, as in this postcoital premature-ejaculation joke: “I’m just so glad I didn’t explode all over you. I just kept thinking, ‘Please don’t explode. Please don’t explode.’†“You guys have it so tough.â€
There’s plenty of real-world resonance in Spontaneous; it’s tempting to spot parallels to COVID-19, especially during one sequence set in quarantine, though of course the movie was filmed before the pandemic. More often (though not always), the Covington Curse stands in for the school-shooting epidemic in this country, a metaphor made particularly explicit when one government official tries to comfort the class by saying, “You have all of our thoughts and prayers.â€
That comment results in incredulous laughter, an understandable response from a group of kids who’ve long since gotten used to hearing this bullshit. Even the most well-meaning adult authority figures here struggle to understand what the kids in their orbit are going through. A father buys his daughter a weed pen for Christmas; one likable teacher admits to his students that while he can help them graduate, he can’t assure them everything will be okay. It makes you think of the real parents and teachers forced to deal with this dilemma every month in this country after another national tragedy: How can you be a source of comfort to your kids when brutal reality is staring them in the face?
Too many YA stories centered on grief reduce the young characters to their trauma, filling their day-to-day lives with misery and dysfunction. But while Spontaneous features its fair share of unhealthy coping mechanisms, it also understands that suffering just becomes a part of life. The teens still have crushes. They continue to laugh and party and lust after each other, even as they lose their friends. They worry about getting into college while gradually losing faith that they’ll even make it to graduation. They have their own problems — both as a result of the Covington Curse and completely separate from it.
The movie does pack its emotional punches, especially in the second half. But it’s the dedication to balancing the grim with the light — both through the grounded sincerity of its central romance and the pleasant sting of jet-black comedy — that proves key to its success. It’s true that trauma has robbed these kids of the carefree senior years they deserved, and the ones who do survive will likely be dealing with fear and survivor’s guilt for years to come. But Duffield’s script posits that maybe it’s possible to find some solace in shared experience, and in the knowledge that, given time, life really does go on. That’s something Spontaneous always remembers, through every hilarious and devastating moment.