Review of Spring Breakers (2013) by Smithcaaron10 — 31 Mar 2013

Tl;dr Debunking "the grass is always greener" myth with the help of sex, drugs, money, and violence. It's awesome.

Let's start with the bad: This movie is a fantasy, or a narrative if that's your preference, but in either case it is not a story as it clearly has no thoughtful ending. I tried justifying this lack of a true story ark as "stream of consciousness" but the movie has no idea who the real narrator is. Additionally, no single actor gives a great performance, not even James Franco. However, that is largely a product of the difficulties that accompany former Disney stardom. Instead of envisioning Vanessa and Selena as "average college girls," the movie posits the two as a couple of Catholic schoolgirls recently released from Our Lady of Disney Academy. That is to say it is impossible to divorce their former roles as emissaries of all things chaste and tasteful from their outrageous portrayals in this movie.

Now for the good:

The soundtrack. With the heavy electronic and dubstep influences, the soundtrack denotes this movie as the first outrageous party movie to be firmly, inextricably grounded in the 2010-2019 decade (and yes, I have seen Project X). The soundtrack perfectly mirrors the movie, its highs are outrageous and its lows are hallowing. Next, the editing. People can bash the repetition of lines and shots all they want, but the cinematography in this movie was damn good. The devotion to an "artistic" vibe made the beginning a little dizzying and difficult to comprehend, but it was justified by moments of intense clarity later on in the movie. Finally, the girls in this movie are just plain gorgeous, there's no way around it. If as a girl that makes you feel threatened, I must advise you to see something else. Disclaimer: I love outrageous movies, because I see them for what they are: movies. If you hated Django Unchained for its unrealistic depictions of violence and red-eyed fantasies of revenge, then you won't like this movie either. If you do go see this movie, I urge you to give the director the benefit of the doubt that underneath tantalizing images and violent fantasies lies a very real, accessible message.