Spontaneous

A genre-mixing film set in a high school. A student in a classroom suddenly explodes. There is no visible cause, no illness, no warning. Then another. It happens only to the students of that one class. The school is closed, the army arrives, quarantine is imposed and the students become test subjects. Nobody finds the cause. Mara is at the centre. After the deaths begin she starts seeing a boy named Dylan; both live knowing they could die at any moment. The register is strangely funny. Mara is sardonic, fast-talking and turns the situation into a joke. Then the film changes register and its second half is built entirely on grief. The idea is plain: it is a genre allegory and it is talking about young people dying at school. But the narrative does not turn it into a sermon. The source is Aaron Starmer's novel. Katherine Langford plays Mara and Charlie Plummer plays Dylan. Piper Perabo and Rob Huebel are in the cast. Brian Duffield directed; his first feature. It went straight to digital release during the pandemic. An original production for anyone who likes mixtures of genre and dark films about young people. Before you watch, know this: it is bloody and its second half is unexpectedly heavy.