"Spring Breakers" - Film Review

Harmony Korine is a provocateur. He's a writer and director known for his films that try to shock us.

His first attempt to provoke us in Spring Breakers is in the casting. There's definitely an element of stunt-casting to having Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens appear in Spring Breakers. The film is playing against their perceived family friendly, Disney personas. Of course these are personas that have been built up over many years, and the film is concerned with appearances, particularly manufactured ones. 

The story of Spring Breakers is a simple one. Four nubile college females (Gomez, Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine) are obsessed with going to Florida for spring break but don't have to money to do so. So three of them decide to rob a chicken joint to gain them the necessary funds to stay down in the Sunshine State. They seem almost unconcerned by the violence they've used to acquire the money; in fact, they almost revel in the rush of the experience. But this fits in with what much of the film argues. The film makes the case about the emptiness and vapidness that underlies so much of this partying-obsessed lifestyle.

The film's lighting is bright and its editing style is frequently filled with quick cuts. It's like the film is on ADHD. The vibe the film gave off to me was like a dance club, but it's more like coming down from a high and realizing the club is little seedier than you first realized. The color scheme for the film is a bright and super saturated; everything pops but it's lots of neon colors which almost becomes hard to visually take. The music choices similarly blare out; it's lots of techno, house and dance music.

The film is often one that's more concerned with its ideas than its story. The film ends abruptly and little actually happens in the course of getting there. We see the girls do lots of bad things, and be blind and ignorant to the damage their causing. This is at times property damage or physical harm, but there's also lots of psychological harm being wrought throughout.   

There's not much distinction between the four girls, but perhaps that's the point. They're stand-ins for all the people like this. Gomez plays the ostensibly "good girl" whose religious, and at one point super ironically comments on the spiritual awakening the trip has lent her. But besides that there's little done to give us a sense of what has led these people to this point in their life.

James Franco arguably gives the most memorable performance in the film. He plays a criminal who bails out the girls after they end up in jail midway through the film. The performance is ridiculously, almost unbelievably, hammy.

The film gets it message across at its best when its showing subtler contradictions. There are moments in the film that in the hands of another director would be erotic or sexy or tantalizing, but here are sad, pathetic, and even disgusting. There's plenty of nudity throughout and Korine lingers on the images of naked bodies. The objectification is magnified times ten to the point where it's not sexy or interesting, but just a matter of fact. What initially might have seemed like an exploitative film is much more contemplative and venemously indicative.

Grade: B+