Film Review: Spring Breakers
Big guns, bigger arses, piles of money tripped out in neon lighting and a dub step sound track to set ears ringing; writer-director Harmony Korine’s latest film is tearing up cinemas nationwide.
Spring Breakers is the nihilistic story of a Disney-gone-bad group of college students slammed with a heavy hand into a Floridian party scene that more closely resembles Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto than it does the real spring break American phenomenon. Korine seeks to expose a superficial skin-deep culture with such forced veracity that Spring Breakers suffers catastrophically as a whole, rather than satirising with gritty wit the film spirals into a repetitive and narcissistic circle.
Korine relies too heavily on the idea that corrupting Disney starlets Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez is a shocking and even taboo idea. But in a world that has seen Christina Aguilera mud wrestle in assless chaps, Britney Spears shave her hair in the midst of a breakdown, and Lindsay Lohan being, well, Lindsay Lohan, Spring Breakers seems tame and insincere when compared with the often darker reality.
Selena Gomez plays Faith, the ‘innocent’ girl in the group with a performance as irritating as it is wooden. With frequent calls to her Grandma she acts as a narrator of sorts, but when she claims that this cocaine fuelled orgy of adolescent debauchery is “the most spiritual place [she’s] ever been to,” there was a collective sigh of despair in the audience. If Korine had meant this to be funny, ironic, or even provoking he missed the mark hugely, and calling the only character that represents Christian morality Faith is a metaphor so blunderingly obvious it physically hurts! Had this been handled differently, with a nod to the audience that this was a deliberate turn, then maybe, just maybe, the end result would have been different.
The narrative itself is repetitive until it borders on Groundhog Day, endless scenes of excess that are far less shocking then were perhaps intended. As for the exploitation of half-naked woman; to borrow a phrase from Charlie Brooker, that much money hasn’t been thrown at a shuddering ass since CNN hired Piers Morgan. The problem with Spring Breakers is that this particular ship of senseless depravity has already sailed, and sailed a long time ago. Korine is highlighting a generation that has become desensitised to practically all forms of sex, drug use and violence – conversely, a generation which this film is largely aimed at, so it’s no surprise that scenes of such seedy decadence have little or no effect upon on audience that was numbed to the point of indifference somewhere in the nineties. Ironically it was Kids, the tale of HIV and teenage sex in inner city New York, written by Korine and released in 1995 that stands as the vanguard of truly shocking cinema – in effect Spring Breakers would have been a lot more deplorable if Kids had never been written.
James Franco plays Alien, the gangsta would-be-rapper who takes the four girls under his heavily tattooed wing. He is the only saving grace of the movie. He overacts brilliantly, drawling with a southern lilt from behind his gleaming grills; “spring break y’all” quickly becomes the films mantra, echoing throughout and acting like a bridge between otherwise disconnected scenes. Franco delivers a truly five star performance which is annoying locked inside this sub-par film, it seems like the whole film is a joke that only he is privy to, even Korine is excluded from the punch line as Franco becomes a law unto himself. A Cribs-like tour is given by Alien to three of the bikini clad college girls, thankfully Faith has had enough and gone home by this point, he presents all his “shit” and his widescreen that shows Scarface on loop in a hilarious parody of material-fetishisation.
As strong as Franco’s performance is it isn’t enough to carry the film. Spring Breakers suffers fatally from a lack of direction, originality and anything (bar Franco) resembling a self-awareness. If you enjoy bright colours and a bit of banging dub step then this film may be for you, if you’re looking for a film with substance, that isn’t limited to literal substance abuse, then Spring Breakers is most definitely not the film for you.