Movie Review: Spring Breakers

It takes a special kind of artist to capture the zeitgeist of a culture. The work needs to be simultaneously recognizable, off-putting and intriguing. Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers does all of these things. The director examines modern youth through a filthy lens, painting millennials as sexy, dangerous creatures whose lack of concern for others, and their own mortality, make them a force to be reckoned with.

 

The film follows four collegiate girls as they embark on a spring break trip to Florida. Lacking cash, three of the girls, Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine), rob a diner armed with a mallet and a squirt gun. They pick up their morally stable pal Faith (Selena Gomez) and head down south. Florida is full of writhing bodies in neon bikinis, drugs and alcohol. The group is arrested at a wild party but promptly bailed out by small time rapper Alien (James Franco). Faith, terrified of the experience, takes a bus home to escape her nightmare.

Franco is at his slimiest as Alien. He strokes the girls’ faces, tracing their lips with his fingers, brushing hair out of their eyes. His tacky house contains an impressive menagerie of guns and drugs, which he shows off like they’re Gatsby’s fantastic shirts. The remaining girls are taken in by his gangster persona and willingly become his uniformed lackeys. Sporting pink ski masks paired with a neon swimsuit, they rob anyone unlucky enough to get in their way.

 

Korine, who also wrote the script, captures the asinine aspects of today’s youth culture: the stupid phrases (gratuitous use of ‘y’all’, DTF), ridiculous music (Dubstep) and most importantly, egomania. His casting of two ex-Disney princesses, Hudgens and Gomez, is inspired. They draw in viewers familiar with their cuddly personas then shock their senses by acting like complete degenerates.

Spring Breakers is a fun romp with a scary message. Not all young people are rotten like these girls, but then again, they weren’t either.