Spark: Drama Puts Clever, Winning Time-Loop Twist on Rom-Com Formula
By Thom Ernst
Rating: B
I'm happy to report that Theo Germaine's career gets a much-needed upswing as the lead in director Nicholas Giuricich's romantic thriller Spark. Indeed, it’s about as far away as you can get from his appearance in the forgettable Kevin Bacon project, They/Them. Spark is what They/Them wasn't: watchable.
It's also better scripted, better directed, and more thrilling.
Germaine is Aaron, the careless, in-love twenty-something caught in an annoying time loop. Every afternoon, Aaron wakes up to their roommate Dani (Vico Oritz), offering them a glass of wine that has gone horribly off. Later, Dani chides Aaron for their habitual refusal to see the red flags in his often toxic, always failed, flings. When Aaron promises to do better, Dani bets Aaron they can't go 24 hours without succumbing to temptation. The stakes are big: cleaning out Dani’s nose-hair trimmer.
Later, as part of a pre-birthday party scavenger hunt, Aaron meets a handsome stranger named Trevor (Danell Leyva). Aaron is smitten, and the two men fall into a quick and easy banter. Despite Aaron's promise to Dani, the encounter leads to sex. At a crucial moment, Aaron wakes, and once again, Dani stands in the doorframe of their bedroom, holding a glass of bad wine. And the entire day repeats.
In the first round of repeated events, Aaron is typically baffled. Then, as the cycle continues, he learns how to manipulate the situation to his advantage. In this case, that means finding everything about Trevor so they can impress upon him how alike they are.
Morality alert! It's always best to just be yourself.
With that, Giuricich could have settled into a decent, if not familiar, romantic comedy, and for the first act, that's precisely what Giuricich does. But then things spiral into dark and mysterious places, and not always taking the comedic bend, often not even lingering on the romantic. That’s a good thing because Gluricich has better things in store for us.
The romance element in Spark has its appeal and is served greatly by Leyva's controlled yet varied performance, running both hot and cold, both distant and desperate. In one scene Leyva delivers an impactful dark revelation. Not since Jason Patric's emotionless admission in Neil LeBute's Your Friends and Neighbors (1998) has there been a monologue so flawlessly written and delivered.
I found the romance scenes too staged to fully invest in the outcome. Aaron's anguished pleas are cringingly needy, which is accurate to their character but seriously interferes with awarding them much empathy. I would run, too, if someone I just met wailed at me for a second chance.
Far better are the moments where Giuricich dips into meta-physics, spacetime continuum, time warps, and mystery. Giuricich writes a multileveled script that barrels unexpectedly into suspense and the unknown. For every moment Giuricich falls back on traditional romance and time-loop storytelling, there are two moments of unanticipated insight with an added wrinkle unseen, I think, in a film of this kind.
As Aaron repeatedly returns to that one day, there are more questions raised than answers—and the questions grow darker. Trevor isn't just waving a red flag; he is a red flag. But will Aaron recognize the signs, or will their need for love get in the way of better judgment? And what is Trevor hiding? Spark takes us to a place so far removed from its quaint beginnings that it’s almost like watching two films.
Spark — which makes its world premiere tonight (Friday, May 24, 9:30 pm) at TIFF Lightbox 2 as part of the Inside Out Film Festival — strikes an uneven balance between Groundhog Day and Memento.
Giuricich shows a remarkable talent for digging deeper than a surface-level boy-meets-boy romantic romp. The film falters when it settles for pleasing the audience with well-worn turns towards clumsy flirtations, amicable sidekicks, and soars when it pushes against the norm.
There are endless time-warp movies, and yet Giuricich somehow manages to bring something fresh to a genre that, well, tends to repeat itself.
Spark. Directed by Nicholas Giuricich. Starring Theo Germaine, Danell Leyva, and Vico Oritz. Tonight (Friday, May 24), 9:30 pm on Toronto’s TIFF Lightbox 2 as part of the Inside Out Film Festival.