Certificate:
18
Running
Time: 94 mins
Director:
Harmony Korine
Starring:
Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, James Franco
Genre:
Crime, Drama
Country: USA
Four friends decide to rob a restaurant in
order to fund the spring break of their dreams in Florida .
While there, they find themselves arrested on a drugs charge only to be
bailed out by a local drug-dealer who has taken a shine to the bikini-clad
quartet.
The comparisons between Harmony Korine’s
written & directed Spring Breakers and
Larry Clark’s Kids are all too easy
to make. Not only do you have a story of
the underbelly of the disconnected yoof of today but Korine cut his teeth as an
uncredited club kid in, what was then, the most shocking and shockingly
underrated movie of a generation. His
time on Kids appears to have played a
huge part in forming his perspective on life.
This is a movie that, unsurprisingly, came with
very mixed reviews upon its release. Its
mainstream casting pushed it into a brighter spotlight than it would have
arguably been given otherwise. Its indie
demographic, perhaps, disconcerted by the names above the title. Add to that the Studio’s trouble with
figuring out exactly how to market this movie without playing on the sexuality
of the leads and suddenly there’s something of a void where an audience should
be. It’s ever so slightly criminal how
poorly received this film has been. Does
it have issues? Which movie
doesn’t?! But it’s clever. It’s much cleverer than it is given credit,
to which I attribute by all the T&A shaking that accompanies spring break
and the marketeers’ decision to focus predominantly on that.
Korine is a cast-iron product of Generation Y writing about Generation Y-not(?!). This is a generation of children that have been raised against the backdrop of 9/11, George W. Bush's Wyatt Earp approach to International politics and almost commercialization of violent crime in the U.S. A generation that's told "do it and if you get caught you can always blame television... movies... video games". The most important part of the message to them is that self-responsibility is a dirty, hyphenated word. Korine takes this schooling of these kids and applies it as logic to his film's world. The conception, glorification and sexualisation of violence is standard. It' only really considered shocking by those witnessing it who have not been indoctrinated by that message. Similarly, consequences are "for other people", something that happens to my brother's-friend's-sister's-fiance in one of those stories that so-and-so overheard while getting a handy at the back of a bus. It takes an incredibly skilled writer to be able to deliver that as a universal reality and not have it come across as contrived, artificial or even bullshit-candy-box romanticism. Korine's script does this wonderfully. His lens captures it almost subjectively (again, thanks to his exposure of Larry Clark), and his performers not only understand this but convey it faultlessly.
The look of the movie is almost a direct contradiction to the narrative subtext laced through the script. Where the writing is considered, deep, and rich the visual aesthetic is bubblegum asses in g-strings and sugar-coated cinematography… but intentionally. There is a very clear message to be taken from Spring Breakers and not to give too much away it’s one that is ever so slightly frightening as we breed a generation of children so disconnected from the terrors of violence that it almost becomes just another mode of self expression.
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Two beer-battered breasts, large fries and a Diet Cola please. |
Vanessa Hudgens (as Candy) is actually very good. Previous to this the most I would have been
exposed to her was Journey 2 (because
The Rock was in it), Sucker Punch [review here] (because
it looked so damn good), and High School
Musical 3 (because I lost a bet) but she’s a performer with a lot of talent
and even more potential once you get passed her looks. Selena Gomez (Faith) is also strong. Not as strong as Hudgens, and there were a
handful of moments when you feel her holding back where a more seasoned
professional would have fully committed but that’s understandable. Ashley Benson (Britt) gives a finely tuned
performance. Her best scenes are
alongside Hudgens. The pair make each
other better but the standout performance belongs to James Franco.
Franco is one of those artists (and whether you
like him or not he is an artist as
he’s a writer, director, actor) who is consistently inconsistent. One moment he’ll be releasing a collection of
short stories, the next directing a Hemingway adaptation, and the third making Your Highness. It always feels like his path is a lot more
muddied and overgrown than others; but that’s also part of what’s exciting
about him when he gets something right.
We recently posted a Papercut Review of Oz
the Great & Powerful [here]… I’ll save you the two hours… it sucks, now go
knit a sweater or something with the time saved. In Spring
Breakers though, he is Drexl Spivey on uppers. His performance as Alien is
intoxicating. Sure, his physical
appearance is completely different but that’s not what’s brilliant about his
time on-screen… at least, not entirely.
There is a complex, combustibility to him in this role. He seems to really understand this character and as such the lines between
Alien and James Franco aren’t just blurred, they dissolve. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a
performance that has caused me to forget that there was an actor behind those
lines but Franco gives that in Spring
Breakers.
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When FHM met IRA |
Yes you can draw comparisons between Spring Breakers and Kids, you can draw them between it and Party Monster also but Spring
Breakers is a strong, fearless, movie in its own right. So many people will watch it and dismiss it
as bullshit titillation for sad old men who want to see some teenage titty
without the fear of their wife finding their porn stash; or some superficial
gun-loving romanticizing of violence in modern culture… but it’s neither of
these things. It’s a mirror for
society. It’s reflecting not just our
beauty but our many, many flaws. People
don’t like that, which might go some way to explaining why it has been so
criminally under appreciated.
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