L to R: Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Rachel Korine (Dir Harmony Korine’s wife.)
Spring Breakers is a flawed vehicle but might be worth seeing. It’s Girls Gone Wild with some gansta subplots thrown in to give it an actual story. It was interesting to note that Spring Breakers was literally in a theater next to Oz the Great and Powerful both of which have James Franco. And as much as Spring Breakers was marketed as the story of four girls on spring break, it’s more about James Franco’s drug dealing, sometimes rapper, Alien.
Spoiler Alert: I tell the plot of the whole movie.
So the four girls start out somewhere midwesty and Selena (her character’s name is Faith but I’m going to refer to the girls by their real names) is the good one. She’s religious and is part of a church youth group that is led by wrestler Jeff Jarrett (he’s playing a role, not as himself). She’s been friends with Ashley, Rachel and Vanessa her whole life but they’re a bit wilder but all four want to go on spring break. They’ve been saving all year but don’t have any money so the other three rob a diner and they all go to Florida. There they really party it up and for Selena it’s life changing but we see Ashley and Vanessa may have gotten into the robbery bit too much. The girls are arrested and bailed out by Alien and at this point Selena cries and goes home. She’s done for the movie. The other three stay with Alien at his house where he has guns and processes drugs and keeps all his money. He also has a pool with a piano outside and he can play Britney Spears songs. It really doesn’t sound like something you’d want to see, does it?
Anyway Alien has a rival in Archie (Gucci Mane) who feels Alien is encroaching on his territory. So there’s some friction between the two factions. At some point Rachel gets shot in the arm and she cries and goes home. Then Alien, Ashley and Vanessa go to Archie’s compound to kill him but Alien is shot dead immediately and the two girls each with one semi-automatic (and since they’re wearing bikinis have no real place to store extra clip)s somehow kill everyone in Archie’s entourage and Archie without a scratch. They don’t cry but they go home.
Spring Break.
Doesn’t it look like Ashley is sticking her finger in Selena’s butt? No, really.
So the story is stupid. But it is executed intriguingly. And it’s because of the characters. (It can’t be because of that story.) That makes it even more amazing because at no point do you really care for anyone except maybe Selena and she’s gone before the movie is even half over. So what’s worth seeing that you wouldn’t see in a Girls Gone Wild vid? Does anyone grow emotionally? I don’t know. There seems to be some form of repentance before each girl returns to school/home. But you don’t really get a solid idea if what. What was the point of Alien? Maybe some form of catalyst for the girl’s discovering something about themselves? I don’t know. I don’t know that anyone does.
In the long run it’s a weak Natural Born Killers disguised in a Girls Gone Wild film. If you like the latter you may come away liking the film. But if you’re not a fan of watching boobs and substance abuse you’ll probably find the whole thing a waste of time.
There is also a question of time. I cannot tell how long the girls stay with Alien after Selena leaves. It seems like a looong time but the whole movie may be the duration of the one week of spring break. Also see how long he takes between cuts. On non-moving camera shots it’s around 5 seconds and no more than 10. Dollying or steadycam shots can go a bit longer.
