Review of Spring Breakers (2013) by Mike N — 02 Mar 2014

Harmony Korine, an underground staple with films like Kids and Gummo, burst into the public consciousness with this "scandalous" streak of neon nudity and thumping bass. Crafted with the distorted worldview typical to Korine's work, but swapping somber realism for frenetic editing and a Skrillex score, the film would have likely remained a limited release were it not for the casting of two former Disney actresses (Vanessa Hudgens and Selina Gomez) and James Franco, as gun-toting guru Alien.

Franco's character plays like a Lebowski for the modern age, trading weed and a mellow vibe for coke, ecstasy, megalomania and a few too many viewings of Scarface. And while the other three girls (Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Korine's wife Rachel) function as little more than technicolor eye-candy most of the time, Gomez truly impresses as Faith, a girl who finds herself in too deep.

While there is a narrative to Spring Breakers, the film repeats images, jumps back and forth in time, and draws out moments that at first seems bizarre (a Britney Spears sing along). While other films would show some typical "spring break parties" to introduce the setting, Korine relishes in them, changing speeds with dub step score, intercut with color and light, like Stan Brakhage filming Girls Gone Wild.

At its core, Spring Breakers isn't a "crime film", it isn't "sexploitation". It's repeating images, its flashing lights and sexual images, they all function like parts of a song.

Spring Breakers is a tone poem on screen, and chooses gangsta rap and sexualized-bubblegum pop lyrics to illustrate. It digs within them, more than the average person ever does, and blasts it unrepentantly onto the screen.

Is it reality? No. It's the current that runs beneath it.