
SPRING BREAKERS
There was a time (around 1997) when I prettymuch looked like James Franco's character in this movie. The braided hairs, the Hawaiian shirts 'n wifebeaters, the big sunglasses, posing with guns while playing rap music, watching SCARFACE in a non-stop loop. So I felt a certain kinship with this movie. But beyond capturing the look and behaviour, writer-director Harmony Korine captures the hypnotic feeling of partying and how good it feels it to be young and just do drugs and dance and grind for hours and days on end. That pulse of adreniline, tits, and music runs through this movie. If tonight is what it means to be young, then this movie takes place tonight, even though I saw it yesterday.
The film won me over with its understanding of the youthful mentality of these four girls who just want to party. Then when James Franco's character shows up, the real plot starts up and revolves around his dream of getting a posse of hot girls to be his henchwomen in a crimewave to take on his rival, who was his childhood best-friend and has an ice cream cone tattooed on face. By the time we get to the part where Franco performs a Britney Spears ballad on an outdoor piano while the girls dance ballet with shotguns while wearing pink unicorn ski-masks, I was in love with this movie.
This is a coming-of-age movie, much like Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN and FOXES, except that it looks and feels nothing like those movies on the surface. It looks more and feels more like MIAMI VICE with its minimalist dialogue and use of lighting, music, and editing to moods. Franco gives an excellent performance and totally commits to playing this guy in a sincere way. The four girls fit well into their roles (Gomez is the timid one, Benson is the daring one, Hudgens is the cockmonster, Korine's wife is the passed-out one). There's this one motif in the movie in which the girls all call their mums or nans and tell them how much fun they are having. All four actresses perform these scenes like they are reading their lines and not having an actual conversation. If it had just been one girl who sounded like that, I probably would've just thought it was bad acting, but all four sounding so dry in these one-sided conversations makes me think it was some sort of deliberate stylistic choice on behalf of Korine.
I think this film is really good. I really enjoyed it and woke up this morning still thinking about it an smiling. Spring break 4-ever, bitchez!