If Russ Meyer and Quentin Tarantino collaborated on a screenplay for Terrence Malick to direct, the resulting film would resemble something like 2013’s Spring Breakers. Believe it or not, that’s an over-simplification for one of the most challenging and daring films to be released in mainstream theatres since Oliver Stone’s 1994 media trash masterpiece, Natural Born Killers.
Three southern college girls (Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, and Vanessa Hugdens), bored by their daily routine and strapped for cash, conspire to rob a local restaurant so they can fund the paradise getaway of their dreams: spring break in Florida. They drag their saintly church-going friend (Selena Gomz) along, get arrested for partying too hard, then are bailed out by a mysterious thug named Alien (James Franco). Alien then brings the girls into his “American Dream” world of mansions, drugs, guns, and every other possession one could imagine. One by one, the girls slowly realize their limitations (or lack thereof) as reality (or, again, lack thereof) starts interrupting their candied, psychedelic daydream.
Spring Breakers, like most great movies, succeeds by turning all expectations against its viewer. These seemingly harmless little airheads- living in a shared fantasy land created by Youtube, cartoons, movies, and video games- are ultimately far more dangerous, corrupt, and sociopathic than Franco’s character could ever be. They are, in fact, a horrifyingly amusing mirror that reflects the dark side of today’s over stimulated youth culture: “Pretend it’s a movie, pretend it’s a video game.”
Like Natural Born Killers, Spring Breakers uses excess to comment upon it. The film opens with a two-minute montage of ultra-slow motion Spring Break Mayhem: topless girls, excessive drinking, rampant machismo, and overt misogyny. Korine’s point is hammered home from the get-go. It can also be misunderstand, as the film never lowers itself to announce its own irony.
I saw Spring Breakers three times in theatres (it only gets better with repeat viewings). Every single time, I heard college kids stumble out of the theatre afterwards while muttering things like, “That’s it? What even happened? That was stupid!”
The point being lost on them is, quite possibly, the point Spring Breakers is trying to make with its own, wondrously weird, existence.
GRADE: A
