Review: Spring Breakers

Before my spring break, I reviewed “Spring Breakers” for Vox. You can read my review on their website or below.

Don’t let the neon bikinis and James Franco drawling “spring break, y’all” fool you. “Spring Breakers” will shatter all of your stereotypes of debauchery and the Disney stars who take part in it.

Butts and boobs shake in the opening shots of the movie, but director Harmony Korine’s version of spring break is meant to be more critical than titillating. At first, four college friends Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and naïve Faith (Selena Gomez) seem like typical travelers looking to get tan and trashed on beach, but they’re really looking for escapism from their boring lives. They get a little too much excitement when the cops arrest them for cocaine, and they’re bailed out by a local rapper who knows the dark side of St. Petersburg.

Alien (Franco) is a “straight up G,” complete with a vanity plate that says “Ballr” and grillz. We get the impression that he is pretending to be gangster and doesn’t even know what to do with all his drug money and guns. Like seeing a car spin out before a wreck, Franco is fascinating to watch as her veers between over confidence and panic. He isn’t the only actor out of character — Hudgens and Gomez are as strung out as their bikinis and wholly convincing as girls who don’t realize what they’re getting themselves into. It’s Benson, though, with her sinister smile and knowing look in her eyes, who really captivates us as she delves into the gangster life style.

Just like we’re unsure whom to trust, we never really know what’s going on because of Korine’s dreamlike film style. The sun-drenched cinematography warps our sense of reality. The film’s soundtrack is punctuated with pop music (look out for Franco singing Britney Spears’s “Everytime”) and the sound of a trigger clicking that builds up tension throughout. Korine’s vision turns MTV into art house.

As Brit says, “You can’t be scared. You have to be hard.” Similarly, “Spring Breakers” asks the hard questions on the damages of tourism and youth culture. The answers are entertaining and fascinating, just don’t expect them to be pretty.