Movie Review: Spring Breakers (2013)

March 25, 2013 / Leave a Comment

SPRING BREAKERS

BY CHRISTOPHER HASKELL
MARCH 25, 2013

“Spring Breakers” is far from perfect. Still, it does display enough potential to lead director Harmony Korine onto bigger and better things, the likes we’ve seen from many up-and-coming directors, specifically the recent rise of director Nicolas Winding Refn. It is then interesting that Korine uses the same composer, Cliff Martinez (along with Skrillex, who produced the best soundtrack this year), as Refn’s “Drive,” which banks some of its success off the composer’s particular brand of the soundtrack.

Seeing just the name Harmony Korine, I assumed the director was female, which made me feel better about the depiction of women, half-and fully- naked, partying like an episode of “Girls Gone Wild,” almost to the point of making the viewer uncomfortable. Attribute some of this to the social commentary on a particular generation, but I feel a female’s perspective on the subject would have held more weight.

Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, and Selena Gomez take significant steps to rebrand themselves out of their comfort zones. They are no longer the Disney generation, but flesh-and-blood, sexual beings, and believe me, they are sexual from scene one until the very end. James Franco also helps the film stay grounded, offering some of the most poetic portions of the film. Although the shotgun transition sounds are often out of place and the repetitive, echoing voice-over is often unwarranted, enough is going for “Spring Breakers” to make it an independent success.