| Director(s) | Harmony Korine |
| Principal Cast | James Franco as Alien Selena Gomez as Faith Vanessa Hudgens as Candy Ashley Benson as Brit Rachel Korine as Cotty Gucci Mane as Archie |
| Release Date | 2012 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Running Time | 93 minutes |
The movie opens with excess as the title credits splash onto the screen. Neon colors and stylized letters give an indication of the story to come.
Synth dance music starts to play as a montage depicting the festivities of spring break start to play. The camera leers at the debauchery – moving over the bodies of young 20 somethings fully embracing the pleasures associated with the season. Crotch grabbing, ass shaking, flashing the camera, a litany of phallic behavior (talk about Freudian) from fellating popsicles to jerking off beer bottles – it’s all a proclamation that this drive to enjoyment is the law of the land.
This excitement is interrupted as the movie cuts to a suburban area – a college campus that’s boring and drab compared to what came before. We move to a classroom filled with bright, neon screens coloring the space. The professor at the head of room starts to talk about the Double V campaign – a slogan used during World War II to tie the fight against fascism abroad to the fight against racism at home. Despite serving in the troops, African Americans were still treated as sub-humans in their homeland of America. This discussion on the nature of race’s relation to the American dream and its ideological stronghold is ignored as the camera moves to two girls, Candy and Brit, who are more focused their upcoming spring break-cation. The plight and suffering of African Americans is drowned out by Candy performing mock fellatio on a drawn out penis that says “Spring Break Bitch”.
This displacement is no coincidence. It’s a reminder to us that the anti-blackness that was started in the United States with slavery and plantations still persists – lingering in the background – an undercurrent to Americana that is constantly ignored and shoved aside.
The professor’s lecture drowns out and turns into the voice of a youth pastor trying to amp up a group of young Christians. In this circle of religious adherents is the aptly named Faith, a young women who’s dissatisfied with the seemingly boring goings of her everyday life. As the group says “Amen” together in hypnotic and repetitive fashion, the camera cuts to Brit drinking booze out of a squirt gun with a poster of Lil Wayne behind her. A black rapper and pop idol watching the young white women drinking alcohol from a gun – the gun as a tool of violence turns into one of pleasure as pop stars are respectively turned into idols which are to be consumed. The blackness of the star in question is not a coincidence – like the labor of African Americans during WWII, the cultural work done by this community is consumed without abandon without regard for the creators.
The movie cuts back to Faith, who informs her Church friends that she’s excited to go Florida with Candy, Brit, and their other friend Cotty to celebrate Spring Break. The three party girls make their way to Faith to make sure they have enough money for their upcoming vacation. Unfortunately, the girls realize they don’t have enough. This depression manifests itself in the color of their surroundings – blue hallways, blue rooms, and a blue ambiance. The blue normalcy that surrounds them is unbearable and they have to get away. They need to find themselves and awaken in a spiritual fashion that’s” impossible” to do in their current location. It’s at this point that Candy, Brit, and Cotty make plans to steal the money they need. They drive down a yellow road. Like the road Dorothy travels in Oz this is a path to transformation and change. The whole time a voiceover from Candy and Brit repeats over and over like the “Amen”‘s from before- “Just pretend like it’s a video game” , “Act like you’re in a movie or something” – an updated mantra for the new age. If pop culture and pleasure are the new Gods in this incarnation of the American Dream, then this repetition is the prayer adherents must believe to survive. They go into a local restaurant and steal from the unsuspecting patrons- emerging at the bright red exit. Finally, their journey can start.
They make their way to Florida and the party begins. The girls lose themselves in the spring break assemblage as the images become hyper saturated, letting bodies blend into one another. To be one with spring break is to give oneself fully to pleasure. In this “new” world, all that matters is how far one’s willing to go to get what they want. There’s a newfound agency as the girl’s engage in the same debauchery as their male counterparts. They’re sexualized by the camera, but they embrace it and grab the pleasure bull by its horns. It’s during their escapades that they run into Alien – a white rapper with dreads who traps as his main form of currency. He takes pride in both “being out of this world” and being the only white boy in a black neighborhood. He loves the American Dream which as he explains is all about making change and acquiring more and more.
This is Spring Breakers – an introspective look into the transformed American dream, one that prioritizes material growth at the cost of everything else. The only ethical injunction is to enjoy pleasures to the max. However, this pleasure is nothing more than a pretty picture that covers up the emptiness at the heart of endless hedonism. When the girls are living their lives back home they watch tv, they drink to excess, they smoke weed, they go to house parties, they mess around with each other. When they go on Spring Break, they quite literally participate in the same behavior – it’s just ratcheted up higher and with more dazzling colors. All their spiritual awakening really amounts to is putting a nice filter over their everyday behavior – something that Korine quite literally demonstrates through the replication of certain shots under different lighting. The blue drab lighting that they do despised gives way to a bright red neon hue that demonstrates that it’s only their ideological investment in the idea of spring break as spiritual praxis that makes it so as opposed to the activities they engage in.
In the background is the specter of African Americans- like the plantations and buildings they built centuries ago they have created the the pop culture that the young masses can’t get enough of. However, just like the fruits of their labors on the plantations and the respect /rights they deserved for fighting in World War II, their efforts are once again coopted by the system. They put in the work, but they receive very little if any of the fruits of their labor- relegated to the periphery constantly. From the professor’s early lectures to the constant imagery of black entertainment being consumed and emulated by young white 20 somethings , their presence is always felt.
While the subject matter is disgusting and excessive in the vein of John Waters, the presentation definitely reminds me of Terrence Malick. There’s immense attention given to compositions (there are multiple shots in the movie that feel like they could be wall art/post cards) and using lighting as mise en scène. Blue is dreary normalcy, yellow is change and transformation, while red is the promise of spring break – the heart of the American Dream. The colors permeate through every shot, giving the movie a visual splendor while tying the elements together thematically. The editing is elliptical and features a healthy dose of voiceovers. Lines of dialogue are presented in an almost innocent way to start – a promise of good things, but then are repeated again to reveal the true depravity of the situation at hand. On top of revealing the duplicity of spring break , the repetition of lines creates an hypnotic feeling that fully immerses you in the world. The movie is vapid and deceptive, but that doesn’t stop it from being beautiful and poetic in its own way. It’s beautiful to look and hypnotizing to listen to with very little underneath in terms of plot perfectly tying form to theme.
Complimenting this structure and the movies themes are the performances by the cast. Given the movie’s celebration of pop culture as idolatry, the casting of both Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, two former Disney super stars, is more than apt and sets the movie up for success. Each member of our main cast of heroines demonstrates a different level of comfort with the transformed American Dream. Gomez constantly gives off an disconcerted feeling that she quickly disguises with faux happiness representing Faith’s conflict in embracing hedonism over her spiritual roots. Rachel Korine is constantly having fun and gives herself to the party scene fully showcasing Cotty’s desire to just have a good time. Both Hudgens and Benson express sheer ecstasy at the situation highlighting how how Candy and Brit respectively don’t care about anything than enjoying their experience, no matter how debauched it threatens to get. In particular, Benson showcases a cold danger in her eyes , demonstrating the cutthroat disposition one must have to succeed in the “new” America. Franco brings a surprising amount of depth to a white rapper who drops the n-word from the way he gleefully engages with the girls to the way he constantly has a disconcerted look that occasionally comes through in his eyes. His cover of Britney Spear’s “Everytime” in the latter half of the movie is heartfelt and touching in the most off-putting way possible, perfectly encapsulating everything Alien and the movie is about – celebrating the drive to pleasure and material goods as the end all be all.
It’s not surprising to see the low ratings for the movie : a 5.3 on IMDB, 67% on Rotten Tomatoes, 63 on Metacritic. Those looking for an believable crime story with traditional storytelling are going to feel betrayed by what they get. On top of this, the editing of scenes feels disjointed and fragmented while the repetitive voiceovers can feel lazy and just like an excuse to pad the run time. However, these criticisms miss the point. It’s not that the movie isn’t empty at it’s core. It definitely is. That’s the point. The emptiness is used to point out that way the ideologies we currently subscribe to are empty and vapid. The ideals we cling to are not only built on a bed of anti-blackness, but amount to nothing more than a nihilistic drive towards pleasure. If this famous clip of Spring Breaker in 2020 proves anything, it’s that Korine’s vision and analysis should be treated more seriously. What says hedonistic destruction more than Spring Breakers willing to get corona just to experience their long awaited festivities?
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| TLDR | In what can only be described as Terrence Malick directing a John Waters movie, Korine’s Spring Breakers is one part a celebration of excessive hedonism and superficiality, another part an elevation of pleasure seeking to a form of spirituality, and at it’s core an simultaneous indictment and valorization of the duplicity of the American Dream. The elliptical editing, use of repetition in lines, constant voiceovers, and bright and saturated compositions are intoxicating and transport the viewer into a world of excess that feels empty at its core. Though the movie might seem vapid at first go, it tackles a host of issues from antiblackness to pop culture idolization in thought provoking ways asking us to assess the state of our current orientation towards success and having a good time. Immersive and important, those people who are willing to look beyond the surface might find something worthwhile in Korine’s breakdown of modern ideology. |
| Rating | 10/10 |
| Grade | A+ |
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