Spontaneous - Movie Review

At Covington High Katelyn suddenly explodes into a puddle of blood in the middle of class. This incident is the first of many episodes where the senior high-school students spontaneously explodes. For the rest of the year the students have to deal with the trauma and grief of their friends and classmates randomly dying while dealing with the fear that they at any moment could be the next.

The movie based on the book of same name is dark and very symbolic for the many dangers that poses for the American high-school students. Every student that explodes can be explained with a real and very traumatic way students have died; like overdosing, school shootings, suicides, car crashes, sports incidents and more. At the same time it depicts how the government is willing to engage when a traumatic event happens. But it also depicts how it can often feel the government does not care for the affected and just want a fast easy solution to the problem. Maybe even a solution that they can continuously gain a profit from. Spontaneous is great focussing on the trauma and grief without letting the traumatic situations taking the voice of the movie and making it a politic statement. It also greatly depicts how grief and trauma hits in different ways.

The ending of Spontaneous feels a little off as it shifts from a deep and dark emotional tone to a lighter tone trying to wrap the movie up with a happy life confirming message. It is of course difficult to a deep movie like this on a high note. And it is very daring to movies on low dark note, especially when it is a serious movie about the death of teenagers. Which is probably why they chose the less than perfect high note ending.

Spontaneous is a good movie with an important message. It is deep and serious but also finds a way to be funny and loveable. It is not the perfect movie but it is a great movie that finds a different way to talk about something so serious as how to deal with trauma and grief. I will give this movie four stars.