Stream It Or Skip It: ‘An Unforgettable Year – Spring’ A Sweet Story About An Art Student Who Falls For Her Tutor

An Unforgettable Year – Spring is the fourth and final movie to be released on Prime Video that is based on the book An Unforgettable Year, a compilation of short stories written by some of Brazil’s best young adult authors, each based on a season. They all feature aspects of young romance, friendship, and self-exploration, and in this one, based on a story by Bruna Vieira, is more of the same, with one very important distinction: the song “More Than Words” plays a very important role.

AN UNFORGETTABLE YEAR – SPRING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: “I carry art in my blood,” our narrator explains, as we watch an animation of a young girl drawing. “My grandmother carved her dreams in soapstone,” she says, then explaining that choosing to be an artist and endure a life of poverty and hardship was something her mother never understood. In this animation, we see the mother taking our narrator away from her grandmother at a young age, presumably in search of a more stable life.

The Gist: The young woman narrating the film is Jasmine (Livia Silva), and she’s a high school senior who spends her life creating art, even when she should be focused on her studies. Her parents, Ingrid and Leandro (Juliana Alves and Rogerio Brito), run a flower shop, and they want Jasmine to go to business school so she can run it with them. When Jasmine fails a math test (by drawing all over the paper rather than answering any of the questions) not only is her mother furious, but her math teacher assigns her a tutor so she won’t fail senior year. (If Jasmine weren’t failing math, she’d be in line to be her class valedictorian, in competition with her snooty classmate, Alice.)

Jasmine’s tutor, Davi (Ronald Sotto) is a first-year college student, and he also happens to be very cute. Davi lives and breathes math the same way Jasmine lives and breathes art, and he hopes to instill his love of the subject in her, but he also wants her to pursue passion. So he helps her apply for a prestigious artist-in-training program at a local museum. The trouble is, when Jasmine tells her mother about the program, her mother forbids her from attending it, she’s so against pursuing a life as an artist.

As Davi and Jasmine get closer and more flirtatious, Davi realizes that Jasmine is pulling him away from his own studies, so he lets things cool off between them. Still, Jasmine ends up acing her next test as a result of all of his help. But when Jasmine’s jealous classmate Alice realizes Jasmine and Davi had a fling, she snitches to their math teacher, implying that Jasmine stole all the answers from Davi. Davi is expelled from his school and Jasmine is accused of stealing his answers. To prove she’s innocent, Jasmine is forced to take a test in front of everyone, her parents and teachers, as well as the principal. To everyone’s surprise, she aces it. She also gets accepted into the arts program, and her mother, realizing she’s been stifling her daughter’s dreams, tells her how proud she is of how Jasmine has stuck with her passion.

The film ends tidily, with Davi getting into the prestigious math program he was pursuing, and then returning to find Jasmine to apologize for ever thinking she stole the answers off him. And at Jasmine’s graduation party, the two reunite and share a dance, to a twee, ukelele version of Extreme’s “More Than Words,” the song which played when Jasmine and Davi first met, and which she spent the entire movie trying to place. And now, here it is, and their story has come full circle.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? An Unforgettable Year – Spring has a very similar theme to An Unforgettable Year – Summer: a young girl with dreams of a creative career faces opposition from her parents, but defies them anyway to live her best life.

Our Take: While the broad strokes of the film are about a girl who wants to pursue art (and a relationship) but faces all the typical obstacles in her way, like disapproving parents and a saboteur who tries to hurt her chances of success, there’s a bit more complexity to the story that helps add some layers. Jasmine and Davi are both Black, and discuss the ways that their chosen fields, art and math, are historically dominated by white people, and they refuse to accept the fact that the odds are stacked against them.

There are definitely some frustrating and predictable scenarios in the film, especially regarding Jasmine’s mother who is so opposed to her daughter being an artist that it’s maddening (meanwhile, the mom is a… florist? Which feels like a creative pursuit in itself?). But that’s what gives Jasmine her drive and pushes her to succeed, too.

At the end of the film, after Davi and Jasmine share their dance, the fact of the matter is that their happy endings don’t lie with one another: they both got into the programs they wanted, and that’s what fulfills them. Jasmine’s best friend, Nina, comes over to comfort her that Davi is gone, but Jasmine tells Nina, “It’s over. But it was worth it.”

Sex and Skin: Some PG-rated kissing, but that’s it.

Parting Shot: Jasmine and Davi go their separate ways, but in an epilogue that states that one year has passed, we see Jasmine painting at her residency program. Suddenly, a man approaches her. It’s Davi, and he tells her he’s been sent to her town to do some research for the program he’s in. The two share a smile, reunited again.

Sleeper Star: Luis Lobianco plays Professor Carvalho, Jasmine’s math teacher, who considers math to be the glue that holds the world together. Between his one-liners about how the humanities are worthless, and the way he constantly refers to Jasmine by other floral names, he adds quirky comedic charm to the film.

Most Pilot-y Line: “There’s no point in dreaming,” Jasmine cries when she realizes the odds of her parents accepting her dream of going to art school are nil.

Our Call: STREAM IT! An Unforgettable Year – Spring is a satisfying little film (at 80 minutes, and filled with montages of Jasmine painting, it feels like it’s just a very fleshed out TV episode). As YA romance movies go, this is one that emphasizes how we are responsible for our own happy endings and how satisfying it can be to follow our hearts, even if you don’t always get the guy (at least not right away).

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.