Directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead take a new spin on what it means to have a lover with an enormous secret in their new movie, “Spring.” This film features actors Lou Taylor Pucci, Nadia Hilker and Francesco Carnelutti and falls into the categories of horror and romance. The film attempts to show that even though the couples are from two completely different worlds, they both go through metamorphosis at the end.
Pucci who plays “Lou” in this film goes to Europe, Italy to escape his personal horror of his mother dying and him losing his job after a bar fight. While in Italy, he meets a woman, Hilker who plays “Louise” and they become infatuated with each other. After many dates, Lou finds out that she is hiding a secret which brings the film the “scary” element.
Lou’s metamorphosis is shown with how he interacts with Louise. He doesn’t want to do the typical “hit it and quit it” but instead he wants to get to know her. Louise thought he was weird for not wanting to have sex with her right away, but after seeing him more than once she sees that he is worth the effort. Benson and Moorhead are able to show the audience how much Lou has changed by a scene earlier on in the movie. For example when Lou’s friend suggests he should sleep with someone to forget about his pain. Lou then followed that advice. However, when he went to Italy and met Louise, he changed for the better because he did not sleep with her immediately.
Louise’s metamorphosis includes her ability to only have an interest in Lou and the amount of times the “creature” inside of her attempted to show itself. Benson and Moorhead introduce Louise when she tells Lou that they should go back to her place to engage in sexual activities. The directors made her tone of voice so casual in that scene as if she does it often. Throughout the movie she wants Lou to be intimate with her in other ways than sex. When Lou and Louise are at dinner and he refuses to discuss his family life, she gets upset because that is now the intimacy she is searching for from him.
Benson and Moorhead do a satisfactory job at letting the viewers know that there is a secret. When Louise is asked about her needles in the bathroom by Lou, the fact that she knows so many languages and what happened between her and ex-boyfriend, it all adds up to her keeping secrets. She finds excuse after excuse letting the audience know in those moments of the movie that this relationship is shaky.
The directors use an hour setting up the connection between Lou and Louise without Lou catching on to the secret. Since the movie is roughly an hour and a half, when Lou does find out later on in the movie, it won’t be as genuine because it will not have the time it needs to develop. It will feel as if the directors threw it in there.
“Spring” has been on iTunes, YouTube, and select theaters since March 20th. The movie focuses more on the change that the characters go through individually as a result of meeting each other. Overall, with 75% of people on RottenTomatoes.com, a popular movie website that people said they liked it, “Spring” is not a must see but rather something interesting to look at.