Britney did it by dancing with snakes at the 2001 VMAs. Miley did it by smoking salvia and shaving her head. Now, in the fashion of tween idols escaping their pure images, Selena Gomez hits a bong while Vanessa Hudgens does cocaine off the stomach of a bikini-clad party girl. Ashley Benson rocks a unicorn ski-mask and does a keg-stand. All while James Franco sports a grill and cornrows, rambling on about following your life dream and “gettin’ money.” In a synopsis that reads more like a TMZ report than a movie billing, we have Spring Breakers, the “I’m-not-a-Disney-girl-anymore” breakout film of the century.
The movie, directed by Harmony Korine and starring his wife, Rachel, alongside the Disney channel girls, centers around four childhood friends who can’t work up enough cash to afford a Spring Break vacation. In the spirit of all college broke girl fantasies, Brit (Benson), Candy (Hudgens), and Cotty (Korine), rob a diner with squirt guns filled with liquor. Faith, played by Gomez, is naïve to the girls’ plan, instead spending a majority of the movie chain-smoking and rambling about finding herself in Florida. With enough cash to go on Spring Breakers and enjoy themselves, the girls set out on a bus for the Sunshine State.
Florida is depicted as it always is: sunny, happy, and full of promise (the script forgets to have the girls complain about frizzy hair and mid-day showers). The soundtrack to the film consists of mostly Skrillex, bass drops overlaying scenes of topless girls, and drive-by shootings. James Franco plays what may be the strangest role we’ve seen him in, invoking images of Riff Raff as he raps on stage, orchestrates drug deals, and fuels hatred for Gucci Mane.
Spring Breakers, billed as a comedic drama, is more Fear and Loathing than Animal House, leading many moviegoers to give negative reviews and leave theaters early. Personally, I thought it was interesting, but definitely not what I was expecting. If you go in to see Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens do drugs and get drunk, you’ll get what you asked for, but the last hour of the film may not be worth your money. Gomez, the first to depart from the drug-fueled Spring Break, is hardly in the movie at all. Hudgens, in what I consider the best performance of her career (which may not be saying much), is enthralling on the big screen, screaming profanities at diner patrons as she points a gun to the back of their head. The film is dark, there’s no question, but the juxtaposition of party girl blockbuster and indie drug noir circuit definitely makes it something to see. If not for the movie itself, then for this:
Did you see Spring Breakers? How did you like it?