Written and directed by Welsh filmmaker Jamie Adams, Love Spreads takes a grounded, intimate look at the often unglamorous life of musicians. The movie approaches its subject honestly, allowing the characters the space to explore the frustrating, often tedious experience of recording — particularly when one is suffering from a lack of creative inspiration. However, by sticking so close to the characters' feelings of discomfort, the movie itself becomes an uncomfortable experience to watch, alienating the audience and undercutting the few moments of levity in what is intended to be a comedy. Unevenly paced and with few laughs, Love Spreads fails to tell an engaging story and focuses too much on underdeveloped, unlikable characters.
Love Spreads is primarily a story of frustration: coming high off of a breakthrough debut album, the alternative girl band Glass Heart sequesters themselves for five weeks in a rural recording studio. Unfortunately, the band's leader, singer-songwriter Kelly (Alia Shawkat), finds herself unable to write any material for the sophomore album, with the mounting pressure only making matters worse, particularly when guitarist Alice (Tara Lee) suggests the band could record her material instead. Three weeks into the session, the simmering conflict finally explodes, leaving the band without a guitarist — that is, until free-spirit Patricia (Eiza González) arrives to save the day.
While the premise for Love Spreads is intriguing, and the actors more than capable of delivering strong performances, the material is simply too weak to be entertaining. Adams paces the story using a loose plot comprising long scenes of naturalistic (i.e. likely improvised) dialogue. This style of filmmaking can be very effective and very personal — but it works best when the writing is smart and the characters engaging enough to keep audiences invested. Apart from Kelly — who is saved more by Shawkat's acting ability than anything else — the characters are all flat, ill-defined, or one-note. Hazel (Ruth Ollman) and Alice in particular lack any real personality, while Jess (Chanel Cresswell) and Patricia are vaguely quirky and cool, respectively.
There's a surprising lack of chemistry in Love Spreads, which emphasizes the characters' lack of relatability or likability. The interpersonal conflict in the band, which is the primary driving force of the narrative, feels petty and inconsequential. The artist Kelly and her ever-suffering manager Mark (Nick Helm) should be the heart of the film, but their interactions mainly fall flat. The dynamic between the self-absorbed artist and her pathetic, sad-sack manager should be hilarious; instead, their exchanges feel repetitive and forced. Part of the issue is the material itself, since there aren't any jokes, really, but the major problem is the film's tone. Love Spreads undermines its own comedy with ample use of tight close-ups and long shots that linger. As a result, the movie feels like an indie drama, except the stakes are low and none of the relationships matter.
There are elements of Love Spreads that work: the movie is a vehicle for Shawkat, who manages to inject Kelly with subtlety and nuance. Much of Kelly's feelings go unsaid, but Shawkat finds ways to impart her lines and actions with loaded meaning. Helm does a lot with a little in Love Spreads as well, milking his hapless character's weary resignation to failure. There are charming moments in the direction and the occasional fun scene, like Hazel wordlessly taking over in the kitchen because of Kelly's obvious ineptitude at making eggs. Unfortunately, such bits are simply too few and far between, and the majority of Love Spreads is overly long, repetitive, and boring.
It's a tedious experience, made only worse by the uneven pacing and a lack of clear direction. For a movie called Love Spreads, about a band called Glass Heart, there's little affection between the characters; yet, there's no self-serving apathy either. The movie is simply too restrained, too aimless, to hold the audience's attention.
Love Spreads releases in theaters and VOD on June 18, 2021. The movie is 96 minutes long and is not rated.
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Key Release Dates
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Love Spreads
Release Date:2021-06-18
