I have been watching a slew of movies lately.  And finally the last season of Orphan Black.

It’s dangerous watching Orphan Black before other mainstream media.  You begin to think women might matter in the world of modern entertainment.

Hint:  They’re starting to, but we aren’t there yet.

Spring has popped up on some best of lists for the new year.  I’ve seen it in my feed with people speaking of its virtues in hushed tones, that there’s a secret to the film they don’t want to spill.  That it’s genre defying and the like.

But the deciding factor to me watching it was that I have Amazon Prime and it was there.  As was I.  And I didn’t want to do much else but watch a film.

As I watched Spring I kept getting confused by the lead male actor.  He wasn’t Ethan Hawke.  He should have been Ethan Hawke.  After all we have Before Sunrise, Before Midnight, etc. and wasn’t this in that same world?

Turns out it’s the kid from Thumbsucker, a movie I remember enjoying.  This was another ‘man goes to foreign land falls for foreign woman and they talk a lot’ film.  Not that that’s all it was.  But that is the plot.  And then it wants to change it up a bit by the ‘secret’ of the woman being possible not human, possibly human but with just a demonic defect.  That leads to some for sure humorous lines and scenes, but doesn’t change the realm of the film.  It’s there, but they still want to love each other, explore each other.  It is still a film of a boy going to another land and falling for someone there.

And as I write I should clarify that all these films also involve not just going to a new land, but a European one.  To meet a white woman. Who is skinny.  It’s funny that there is a line that addresses this, where the lead male says he doesn’t like stick skinny women but those more like the heroine. . . who is stick thin so I don’t get it.

Of the characters outside the two lead. . none really are women.  It wasn’t a bad film but it wasn’t groundbreaking, really.  There were interesting parts, some good lines, some good visuals of ‘the monster’ and the like.  The actors do their job well.  There is interesting talk here and there.

If you love those Ethan Hawke films, the genre of overseas love stories, and the occasional CGI monster – you’ll like Spring.