Ever since I endured the uncomfortable experience that was watching Spring Breakers, I’ve been struggling to decide how to present this film to readers. The bizarre, racy, Skrillex-filled movie was so out there that no combination of words readily came to mind.
In Breakers, director Harmony Korine’s main goal is to break boundaries. The most significant way he does this is by taking two former Disney sweethearts — High School Musical’s Vanessa Hudgens and Wizards of Waverly Place’s Selena Gomez — and turning them into partying, convenience store-robbing, wild children. What better way to break the Disney Channel image of purity and honesty than by starring in a film that advertises the exact opposite?
Spring Breakers follows four college-aged girls that are so desperate to go on the classic spring break beach trip that they steal the money needed to get there. Upon arriving at the beach, the four begin having the time of their lives — right up until they get arrested.
To bail them out of jail comes Alien, a “gangsta” with grillz and cornrows who took an interest in the girls’ youthful spirit. James Franco plays this role surprisingly brilliantly, embodying all the traits your parents warned you about — he’s a drug-dealing, gun-owning and connivingly persuasive criminal. Yet even as he’s attempting to coerce the girls into joining him in his criminal pursuits, Franco lends Alien an endearing, childish sensitivity that allows the audience to feel sorry for him — all while wanting to crawl into their seats whenever he appears on screen.
Gomez plays the pure-of-heart Christian, an uninspiringly named Faith. While the other three are robbing the convenience store to acquire enough cash to have the time of their lives, Faith is seen at a worship group, and later on in the movie she’s the first to bail from the trip. Hudgens and fellow star Ashley Benson, on the other hand, take wild child to a whole new level, reveling in the hellride of a spring break trip.
All in all, it takes a deeper look into what outwardly appears to be a superficial, sex-driven film to see Korine’s message. The classic, crazy spring break that is meant to be an escape from the pressures of school and the “same old” places and faces, is intentionally skewed.
Korine shows the fun, wild trip as too wild — what should be a paradise becomes hell. The excessive use of drugs and alcohol and “live fast, die young” theme was so pronounced that it became frightening. The four girls, who just want a break from college stress, are ironically put into a much more dangerous and stressful situation. The catch of the movie is that they still believe it’s a “break.”
Spring Breakers was bizarre, headache-inducing and at times uncomfortable to watch, but if you can see the smart parallels and appreciate the deviation from classic storytelling in the film, you will likely get more out of it than a girls-gone-wild film would typically allow.
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