I wasn’t too sure of what I was going to see out of Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers. With a title like that, one can expect young debauchery in the flat, sun baked lands of Florida. While there’s an abundance of debauchery, it’s a bizarre and rough coming of age story for the four female friends who anchor the movie.
The big deal over this movie was initially in it’s casting. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are Disney kids and these roles are far from the lands of the Mouse Club. There’s drugs, sex, violence and plenty of cussing. The girls are in bikinis for basically the entire movie and the movie isn’t afraid or shy of showing off bare flesh. It’s a really weird movie and it took me some time afterward to really understand what I had watched.
Spring Breakers is shot almost in a documentary style. A lot of hand held camera work, close ups and neon lighting (hello, Florida). It feels like you are a fly on the wall, watching these girls coming face to face with the darker side that lurks in life. The editing pushes this as dialog is often repeated, time is pulled and pushed around mimicking the intoxication of the characters.
The initial push for the girls to go to spring break in Florida is to get the hell out of town. Break the monotony and boredom of their school lives, go on an adventure, meet new people, see new places and experience real life. To explore and see what’s out there. In their desperation to scrape up enough money to get to Florida, Candy, Brit and Cotty rob a local restaurant. This is the first push into the darkside, which shocks Faith but she goes a long with it to be with her friends. After all, adventure awaits!
Once in Florida, the party never stops. Everything is going according to plan, until they get into trouble. This shakes Faith and then when they meet Alien (James Franco) she gets completely spooked. This starts the division of the friends. Lines are crossed and the soul checking begins. While these girls started as very close friends, traveling as a pack, they are individuals who by the end clearly see the world and its “opportunities” differently.
James Franco is really great in this, Alien is such a character and Franco really enjoys playing what can only be described as a dirt bag. He was easily my favorite part of the movie. I thought I’d like this movie more, but I found it to be surprisingly boring. There’s a lot slow motion filming that just makes everything drag on more than it needs to. It never feels like much is going on or being side, it’s like a haze of distant temptation hanging in front of you the whole time (which is probably the point). Plus, the final scene was too unbelievable to enjoy. More meandering than I’d like to see in any medium, Spring Breakers left me feeling a bit cold at the end.