Spring Breakers: Film Review

“Pretend like it’s a video game…”

Spring Breakers, opening in UK cinemas on 5 April, is brilliant.

You might have heard about the movie via the film’s promotion with a series of striking posters and trailers featuring its four bikini clad stars. Starring none other than previous squeaky clean Disney girls who have ‘gone bad’, including Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Selena Gomez, it’s easy to see why it’s secured its place on the celebrity gossip pages and gathered huge anticipation ahead of the film’s release.

In a nutshell, the film tells the story of four naive college girls, bored out of their minds with their studies and looking for something new and exciting in their lives. Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) leave behind their lectures and find their way to Florida via unorthodox means –  the answer is Spring Break B*tches!

Initially, the girls feel like they’ve found paradise as they throw themselves into enjoying this neon world of excess but things drastically go down hill when they get arrested at a party and let out on bail by rapper hustler, Alien (played by James Franco).  Franco is known to favour picking strange and unusual roles and this is no exception – the first scene in which he’s featured rapping on stage is pure Franco absurdity. However, once you accept the ridiculous cornrows and gold grills across his teeth he manages to play the role with the perfect balance of comedy yet power and moves easily into playing the darker side of the character to real chilling effect.

The girls fall deeper and deeper into the alcholic, drug-fuelled, dubstep-infused hell of Florida as they become involved in the daily dealings of Alien and his crew. Filmed through an almost effervescent day-glo lens, the gorgeous production is filled with close-ups, slow motion and clever editing that fuses perfectly with the soundtrack. Penned almost entirely by the Grammy award-winning Skrillex (with the addition of some local Florida rappers), the music is a major highlight of the movie and no doubt soon to be a score to many a summer of 2013. Available to pre-order from Amazon here.

Everything about this film is surreal and features some fantastically demented scenes – namely watching Alien sing a Britney Spears ballad solo on the piano whilst the girls dance around him with machine guns and neon pink balaclavas with the backdrop of the Florida sunset. Brilliant.

It’s a clever and ridiculously enjoyable observation of modern excess. As Alien himself says; “Just look at all my sh*t…this is the American Dream y’all” as he points around to a wall of hats in about 28 different colours and his different tanning oils. Here, director Harmony Korine is commenting on the needless material possessions we are obsessed with nowadays and the film is punctuated with these criticisms of our pop-driven lifestyle of the 21st Century.

Spring Breakers is hilarious, terrifying, demented and mesmerising in equal measure with a soundtrack to die for. Harmony Korine has made a movie that has something to say – and trust me, you should listen.

Trailer below and the film will be out in UK cinemas from 5 April 2013 – enjoy it b*tches!

LMNH rating; 4*