Spring Breakers: Movie Review

Spring Breakers: Movie Review

Cast: Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Rachel Korine, James Franco
Director: Harmony Korine

Babes, boobs, bikinis, bongs and beer.

And then some.

That about sums up the lurid and somewhat trashy Spring Breakers, which is busting out into cinemas and is more of an experience than a fully-formed story. Opening with bright pink titles and a slow-mo, extreme close up of plenty of amply bosomed half-naked nubile young women partying with the boys on a Bacchanal-style beach, Spring Breakers is anything but subtle.

Brit, (Ashley Benson) Candy, (Vanessa Hudgens) Faith (Selena Gomez) and Cotty (Korine) are four college girls who are wanting to head to Florida for the annual American debauch-fest that is spring break. Faith is the only one who's slightly different in their group, coming from a loosely Catholic upbringing and who spends her spare time in college in prayer groups, rather than Brit and Candy who swap crude grafitti notes during lectures.

When Brit, Candy and Cotty rob a local diner with water pistols, the group suddenly has enough to head to Florida - and party down, believing the booze-fest will offer them some kind of escape from their miserable existence.

However, while initially the group has fun in party central, the quartet end up in jail during a bust on a party. But that's when gold-toothed, corn-rowed rapper Alien (Franco in a loopy performance) bails them out in the hope they'll do some dirty work for him....

But fractions form within the group as the excesses of Spring Break and the reality of their lifestyle choices come crashing in.

Spring Breakers is an intriguing film; it's been a while since I've seen it now, but to be honest, I can't quite get it out of my head, which is always an interesting phenomenon for a movie. Like the ladies contained within, there's scant plot, and hardly any real characterisation from the main four girls and James Franco's dealer. I think that's intentional from Harmony Korine, but it makes it somewhat difficult to latch on to any of the emotional plight of the characters.

It's quite an hypnotic experience too as the group chants such mantras as "Pretend like it's a video game" when robbing the diner - (GTA Spring Break, anyone?) and "Pretend like it's a movie" and "Spring Break, spring break forever" are looped like a sampled record.

Is it caricature or is it condemning or celebrating spring break and the lifestyles there? I don't quite know - it's a hollow sleazy experience, yet one which stays with you for good or bad reasons.

Gomez and Hudgens do plenty to dispel their past as the teen Disney queens, but there's very little full on acting for them to do - Hudgens trashes her carefully constructed image with a part in a threesome, and Gomez drinks to excess while others writhe around on the floor, wearing very little; Ashley Benson (from TV's Pretty Little Liars) impresses. A general feeling of everything being unresolved for two of the characters annoys, given that one at least has had some investment in her journey from naive college girl to finding her faith and belief in life tested.

And yet, for Franco, the drug dealer role is one perhaps of a lifetime, a repulsive and repugnant character whose take on life is skewed by perceptions from TV shows and video games; so is Korine condemning us and the younger generation for aspiring to this lifestyle? I'm not sure, but it's a testament to his film making and the final product that I'm still as confused on this film now as I was in the hours after I first viewed it.

The Spring Breakers movie will repulse some, will anger others and will shock - but it should do; it's a film which confounds and defies expectation; a rare feat in today's popcorn world.

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