Spring Part 2: A Wonderful, One-of-a-Kind Amalgamation of Romance, Horror, Comedy, and Self-Discovery (Film Analysis)

LINK TO PART 1!!!

The audience is, once again, given a behind-the-scenes look into Louise’s secrets as she heads out to a remote area inside a cavern—transforming into her ghastly appearance.   She somberly sacrifices a rabbit while performing a strange ritual, devouring the creature as she once again recovers her youthful human form.  A week into having officially become a couple, Evan shows increasing curiosity over Louise’s studies—buying a book from the museum that has a woman with different color eyes on the cover.  Evan gives the book to Louise, pointing out the similarities between her and the cover girl, though Louise dismisses it in a suspiciously nonchalant manner.  Louise quickly leaves their outing together when she starts noticing her transformation, stumbling through some back alleys as vines spontaneously grow on the stone buildings around her.  An asshole tourist stumbles upon Louise and mistakes her for a prostitute, unwisely walking up to her in this feral state and quickly becoming her next meal—his corpse being left on the beach she and Evan were the night before.

Whatever the true secrets behind her transformations are, two things are clear:

1. Louise is uncontrollably dangerous
2. Louise cares for Evan

Put these two together and it’s easy to understand why Louise decides to break up with Evan despite clearly not wanting to.  Evan is understandably mad at the situation, even outright confessing to Louise that he loves her, though she does not return said feelings.  I find this whole situation fascinating as it’s directly contrary to what romances focused on a male protagonist usually do.  The audience is given the necessary information to understand both genders’s position.  One may not understand Louise’s condition by this point, but one does comprehend the reasoning behind breaking up and why it pains her to do so.  Likewise, one can understand Evan’s frustration and heartbreak.  The perspective is balanced between the two genders, something I thoroughly appreciate.

Evan returns to his job at the farm only to discover, through a great bit of deadpan comedy on Angelo’s part, that the authorities are looking for him to deport as he's been in Italy too long:

Evan: Policia?

Angelo: Immigrazione.

Evan: Immigration? Do I need to worry?

Angelo: Si.

Evan: Should I run!?

Angelo: Si.

With nowhere to go, and wanted in both Italy and America now, A desperate Evan goes back to Louise’s house for help, where he discovers...this.

Evan is understandably terrified yet seeing Louise suffering overcomes his fear as he grabs the needle she's trying to cling and—after nearly getting sliced and diced—is able to inject and revert her back to human form.  There's a great bit of dark humor from this serious situation as the scene cuts to the pair sitting opposite each other at the dinner table in complete silence, only for Evan to break it with an understandable, yet outlandish opening statement:

Evan: Are you a vampire, werewolf, zombie, witch, or alien?

Louise: Human.

Louise reveals everything she’s been hiding in an overwhelming manner for both Evan and the audience, leading to a very intense exchange as a distressed and freaked out Evan walks through the town trying to calm himself as Louise continues explaining:

Louise: Evan...I posed for that painting almost two-thousand years ago.

Evan: Ha! This is the crazy I can't handle.

Louise: My eyes are like this because of hereditary heterochromia. Do you know what that means?

Evan: I don't know. You, like, give it to your kids or something?

Louise: Correct, but I've been giving it to myself. There are things I have found out in the last two decades that I don't understand entirely, and you may find them upsetting.

Evan: You're trying not to upset me? You dumped me and became a monster.

Louise: Okay, you win one argument. Um, do you know what embryonic stem cells are?

Evan: Cure stuff. You abort babies to get 'em.

Louise: Not necessarily, but you kind of get the idea. They replicate for a long time and can be used to heal or maintain your whole body.

Evan: So that's what you are? You're like "Newsweek" fountain of youth cells or something?

Louise: Sure, so my body uses the cells so I stay the same age and heal very fast.

Evan: But... embryonic cells? Are you f***ing pregnant?

Louise: I conceive and about a week later I'm a healthy twenty-year-old with fifty-percent new DNA. I stay the same age for about twenty years and then I need new cells.

Evan: And you dumped me once you got 'em.

Louise: You wouldn't have recognized me anyway. I'll have to start a new life. I always do, every twenty years.

Evan: Why tonight? Why even get to know me?

Louise: I didn't want to hurt you.

Evan: Ha!

Louise: God damn it, I mean physically. Before my body uses the cells, it goes crazy. I rot, I turn into creatures from our evolutionary past, I f***ing kill stuff!

Evan: Hey, we both have tempers, huh?

Louise: Yeah, but mine's worse. And something is off. And I thought I could control it, but... f***, I got... I got desperate and I tried occult books and...I ate my rabbit.

Evan: What!?

Louise: Okay, it's not magic, okay? There's adult stem cells in cat brains and rabbit intestines, testicles.

Evan: Well, use those!

Louise: I do, but they aren't as effective.

Evan: Okay, well, whatever I saw on your living room floor, that was not the physical laws of the universe.

Louise: Look, just because you haven't seen something before, Evan, doesn't mean it's supernatural. Evan. Can you please stop walking away? Please?

Evan: Give me a minute.

Not really knowing what to do, Evan tries to call his old friend Tommy (Jeremy Gardner), but he’s too high to understand Evan’s fantastical situation that he explains bluntly straightforward.  Through fate alone, however, Evan spots Angelo mourning at a church for his deceased wife—a woman he loved dearly and has missed throughout the film to a point where he refuses to try dating anyone else.  Perhaps realizing the importance that Louise means to him, Evan goes back to her patiently waiting to discuss the situation.

Louise reveals that she possesses something chemical similar to pheromones that can affect both people and plants—causing plants to blossom and people to become attracted to her, explaining Evan’s sudden infatuation.  She explains how in about one day her process will complete, and she will become renewed into a new person that shares his DNA.  During this process, she will go through many transformations and become very dangerous at certain points.  These factors, in addition to becoming a whole new person who will essentially be his blood relative, are why they must break up and go their separate ways.  Since both are avoiding the cops at this point (Louise having murdered that man earlier), Evan pushes that they spend one last day together driving through the countryside.

Spring fully reveals the mystery over a good half hour before the end credits.  This allows the couple to actually interact with all the monstrous details in the open—no secrets between them.  The atmosphere takes a turn once again from romance with horrific undertones, to romance with comedically-horrific undertones as Evan begins barraging Louise with all sorts of curious questions about her situation:

Evan: You never told me you had a car.

Louise: It never came up.

Evan: What else do you have?...in two-thousand years you must've invested in something.

Louise: Okay, I have an apartment in Rome. In Paris. In Bali.

Evan: So you're slummin' it with me right now?

Louise: It actually is a f***ing nightmare. I have to constantly come up with new federal ID numbers, will stuff to myself... it's a nightmare.

Evan: Right. What's your original name?

Louise: Uh, uh... I don't remember.

Evan: Really?

Louise: Well, do you remember the address of your childhood home?

Evan: Yes, I do.

The film practically becomes a different animal with everything out in the open, having so much new comedic potential available.  It wastes no time taking full advantage of its situation at hand.  

Concept: Louise is a monstrous amalgamation of creatures from her evolutionary past.

Usage: The pair stop by a little ocean poolside, talking romantically as grotesque tentacles drip from Louise's arm into the water below.

Concept: Louise is at least two-thousand years old.

Usage: Louise points out herself in ancient artwork, playfully joking about how Evan is jealous over her having slept with at least one-hundred men.

There’s a downright hilarious scene where the two go to an old church Louise hasn’t been to since its “grand opening”.  Louise, having found someone she can be fully open with in who knows how long, has a field day enthusiastically expressing all the knowledge she’s gathered over the millenniums.  The excitement causes her to get a bit sloppy as she remains oblivious to minor transformations.

Evan: Notices her growing a bulging eye Um… Louise, did you bring your shots?

Louise: Yeah, there's one in my purse.

Evan: You should use it.

Louise: Why, do you see something?

Evan: … Yeah, a little something… Just do it here.

The scene is comedy gold as Louise continues eagerly conveying her knowledge while the needle takes effect, all the while Evan has a mild freak out over other visitors noticing.  One lady does, in fact, notice the situation, telling her praying husband that “A zombie was doing heroine”.

Spring is kind enough to have Evan give a clean recap of Louise’s complex situation all in a natural manner—allowing the audience to get a better grip on the situation and stakes:

Louise: We should buy you some clothes now.

Evan: Why do you hate my shirt?

Louise: You don't listen.

Evan: Oh, I listen… Uh, let's see, I got you pregnant. You can use those embryo cells to heal fast and live forever. When you do that, you physically become half the man who got you pregnant. Um, when you are pregnant, you turn into a cross between creatures from our evolutionary past and a corpse. You could choose to use your adult cells, but then you'd die someday, so...

Louise: You know, honey, just because you listen to a few things doesn't make you Oprah.

Between the romance and comedy, however, the film has got me on multiple occasions with a really good jump scare.  It works exceptionally well because the shift in atmosphere, plus Louise’s situation being explained, leads one to not expect such a startling bit of horror to occur anymore nor be as effective.  Yet the directors reinforce their on-the-fly genre-shifting talent from Resolution, creating an unexpected, strikingly effective scare.  It’s additionally worth praising the makers's skill at crafting the supernatural on such low budgets—often cleverly hiding their low-budget CGI with shadows and quick edits.

It turns out there is a way for Louise to stay the same human she is now, and it all depends on her oxytocin levels:

Evan: Well, how do you choose to use your adult cells? Or your embryonic...

Louise: I don't. My... my body chooses.

Evan: Well, how does your body choose?

Louise: Oxytocin.

Evan: I'm totally lost again.

Louise: It's the hormone that makes women fall in love and get maternal. And if it were high enough, survival reaction blocks the embryonic cells and defaults into my adult stem cells.

Evan: You know that?

Louise: I mean I don't, but I'm not sure. But I can show you the origin of the theory.

I appreciate how Louise still does not fully comprehend her own mutation and is, for the most part, making guess work on how it functions.  It makes sense, how would she have learned about her “scientific” physiology with science has only really started to understand the normal human autonomy in the past one hundred years (plus, it’s not like she can go to professional scientists for help unless she wants to risk capture for experimentation).  The lack of knowledge also keeps an air of mystery and ambiguity to the film’s cosmic horror premise and allows room for error in her explanations without bringing fault to the actual film.  From her theories, however, there may just very well be a way for her to remain as she is—but Louise points out the obvious in the situation; “Evan, I really think you're great, but I'm not giving up eternity for a guy I just met a week ago.”  Her reasoning makes perfect sense—who gives up immortality for a guy they just met—yet emotions aren't driven by reasoning, and while Evan tries to play off his convincing as mere joking, he eventually can’t help but ask her seriously to stay.

Louise takes Evan to her birthplace in Pompeii and shows off her long since petrified family—having only survived because of her hereditary immortality.  Her mother had once possessed the very same mutation yet gave it up to be with Louise’s father—passing the gene onto Louise.  Their dialogue here is a reversal of the previous beach conversation, complete with a callback joke:

Louise: My oxytocin case study? I got it from her. It's hereditary. She gave it all up for me and my father. I don't want to die and I don't want to watch anyone die.

Evan: Well, at least you got the same backstory as Harry Potter. That's pretty cool.

Louise reveals that she'll soon be going through her final stages and will become the biggest and sharpest creature Evan’s seen yet—her only advice being to run really fast when it happens.  Yet despite the immense risk posed here and the transformation period almost upon them, Evan stays by Louise’s side.  Evan is, once again, about to lose a person he cares immensely for, and it shows as his wording becomes more desperate—getting down on his knees, begging Louise to stay while holding her now decrepit arm in a scene reminiscent to his final moments with his mother.  Louise lays her head on Evan’s lap as the camera switches to a close up of his face—inhuman sounds being heard beneath as she seemingly begins transforming.  Evan remains holding her until the sounds completely stop, gently talking to her throughout the process.  Yet when he looks down to see the new Louise, he finds the same woman looking back at him smiling.  Evan smiles back, realizing that she's chosen love over immortality.

The ending is incredibly heartwarming, and it strikes me that, throughout their last day together, Louise could have very well been testing Evan—purposely transforming during specific occasions and lying about the final transformation as a way to see how devoted he is to her and if he truly loves her beyond mere words and pheromones.  Louise's immortality has brought her knowledge, (ambiguous) fame, and riches over the years, as well as loneliness.  Now she finally understands why her mother chose to give it up all those millenniums ago.  Evan has found his new family—including the child that Louise now carries from not transforming—and a fulfilling purpose in life.  It's an effective and appropriate way to display love at first sight within a story that fits both characters ideally.

Spring is a beautiful film, full of rich, realistic characterization, remarkable worldbuilding in such a limited timeframe, a magnetizing romance between two colorful characters with fantastic chemistry and an array of great comedic bits wound up into a supernatural premise with effectively gruesome imagery and scares.  The same film where an ancient being that can transform into an abomination of many species, devours innocent animals and murders humans, and can be grotesquely terrifying in appearance, is also the same film that uses said being for wacky fish-out-of-water comedy and an emotionally satisfying romance that leaves you feeling warm and fuzzy inside.  It takes true dedication to the craft to take these vastly different genres and blend them together in such a seamlessly effective manner, yet directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead succeed in ways I’ve never seen done before.  Spring is a great romance of the 2010s, a great horror of the 2010s, a great comedy of the 2010s, a great spiritual drama of the 2010s, and a fantastic film overall.