Spring Breakers
My first, and up until this point, only experience with Harmony Korine as a filmmaker was through the first film he wrote, “Kids.” That movie didn’t really resonate with my when I saw it, but after watching “Spring Breakers,” I’m extremely curious to watch it again, if only because, from what I remember of it, the new film seems to compliment, or at least offer contrast, to the earlier film. Both movies are about decadent youth culture, but while “Kids” was amoral, and didn’t offer an escape for it’s characters from their tragic lives, “Spring Breakers” begins with one escape, and gradually, leads to another, more intriguing one.
The movie starts with four college girls (Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, and Rachel Korine) who are bored with everyday life and school, but don’t have the money to go to Florida like everyone else for spring break. Gomez’s Faith is the “good girl” of the group, a churchgoer and daily prayer, who wants to see what the rest of the world has to offer, while the other three lose themselves in drinking, drugs, and dancing to get away. One night, Benson’s Brit, Hudgens’s Candy, and Korine’s Cotty hold up a local restaurant to get the money for the trip, and the four of them are off. The robbery is one of the best, most ingenious set pieces in the entire film, as Korine shoots it from the getaway car that’s driving around, watching out for the police, and it’s one of the first times where Cliff Martinez and Skrillex’s dynamic score really packs a punch. When the girls reach Florida, they spend their time partying, doing drugs, drinking, and riding around on rented scooters before landing in jail, where they are bailed out by a white rapper and drug dealer named Alien (James Franco, superb).
It’s when the four cross paths with Alien when Korine’s story seems to come into focus, although even less than a day later, I still have some thoughts processing about the film. Jail is the turning point for the film, and the characters; up until that point, the movie feels like a less-inhibited version of “Project X” or any other teen comedy where decadence and anarchy are front and center, with plenty of nudity and recreational sex and drug abuse to make the most prudish of fundamentalists cringe and walk out. After the girls land in jail, however, and get seduced into Alien’s world, that’s where Korine ups the emotional stakes for the characters; for Faith, she is grateful for Alien’s assistance, but she knows that it’s time to go back to the real world. Alien tries to pursuade her to change her mind, but she gets on that bus, and it’s the last time we see her. Meanwhile, the other three stick with Alien and follow him into a life of crime, sex, drugs, and money, although, while Korine follows the crime thriller elements of the story to the end of the film, he doesn’t lose sight of his characters, who exist in a world of immorality, but still realize there needs to be an escape, and– spoiler alert –the girls each find that moment of escape for themselves, realizing that it’s time to get back to the real world. Otherwise, they’ll end up like Alien, a reflection of what would likely happen to each of these characters if they decided to remain of “spring break” year-round. In that way, the film is less about the experience of a vacation from life, and more of the realization that as much as we want to be away from our responsibilities, we have to return to them at some point. That’s the trade-off we hope life gives us, but many times, we are denied. It’s an intriguing spin on a tired genre, from a writer who made me cringe in youth, but is making me think as an adult. Clever bastard.
