Style over substance is not typically a phrase that I enjoy using, as sometimes even the most interesting narratives can come from stylistic choices alone. Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, however, is solely an exercise in style over substance and proves itself as one of the most frustrating films ever made about a simple college tradition. This grossly-shot and puzzling film relies far too heavily on Korine's hazy and entrancing direction, leaving absolutely no room for any emotional investment in his script. While this movie could be (and has been) translated as a dark and capitalist look into the criminal underbelly of Florida, I frankly could not see past how borderline exploitative its storytelling was. Since I thoroughly enjoyed the direction that Korine took with Matthew McConaughey in this year's The Beach Bum, I wanted to be able to appreciate his twisted take on spring break but, unfortunately, I spectacularly failed to do so.
Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson), and Cotty (Rachel Korine) are four college friends who have grown up with each other their entire lives. When they realize that they don't have enough money to go to Florida for spring break, they decide to rob a local restaurant to fund their stereotypical trip. After getting busted for drugs in Florida, they get bailed out by a local rapper/crime lord named Alien (James Franco), who has many other dangerous plans for them. I can truly see why people would think that this is a dark and unrelenting look at the crime world in Florida, but the lack of context in this script was so extreme that it became frustratingly dull. Korine's script is atrocious and it feels like he actually wrote it on the fly while filming. It completely lacked any interesting ideas or themes to present to its audience, or better yet, ones that made any sense. As this slowly becomes an almost dark satire on the typical party genre of film, Korine begins to rely way too heavily on his direction to push along the story. The hallucinogenic and hazy feel that plagued this entire film was something that is a strong, stylistic choice but one that would have proven better with a more tangible plot. All Korine does is bathe in this ambiguous atmosphere, carelessly guiding his characters through their adventure. I despise this type of filmmaking, as it comes off incredibly lazy, despite it possibly being the point.
This is all coming from someone who actually really enjoyed The Beach Bum. While many could have the same gripes with that film because of its laid-back direction, at least the audience knew what its characters were trying to accomplish. All of the characters in Moondog's world knew the kind of person he was and they all relatively played along to create such an entrancing story. The biggest issue with why Spring Breakers absolutely does not work is that it completely leaves it up to the audience to decipher its characters and who they should be caring about (which was honestly no one). Again, no context is given to any of these girls, with the exception of Faith. I do appreciate the fact that Selena Gomez's character was at least attempted to give some kind of framing in the story. She is the only character that I actually found to have some amount of personal power, by not being naively swayed by Alien and the influence of his criminal activities. Her backstory was mildly explored through the voiceover phone calls with her grandmother and the fact that she was more religious than her friends. Which is not ever to say that women require religion to be a good character, but at least she was given some amount of personality and motivation other than wanting to party and wreck their lives like the other, disposable, weakly-written characters.
I might be missing something, however, because I am in the apparent small minority of people that could not appreciate this film for its attempted dark satire. This is also because of Korine's direction and borderline fetishization of the cinematography from Benoît Debie. Korine and Debie try to use the camera throughout this movie to get the audience to realize how much male gaze is a problem. I can tell that this is what they were trying to do, but shooting a film like that in and of itself contributes to the issue of the male gaze. This backfires in the worst ways possible and more than anything, shows the audience that there are no consequences for what you might do when you see these nearly naked women for an hour and a half. While I applaud Debie for his cinematography being very characteristic of the kind of film Korine was creating, I just can not tolerate when it is used in that way. But hey, at least there are plenty of pretty lights and an abundance of neon to distract us, right?
Spring Breakers is nothing more than a pubescent boy's wet dream thinly disguised as an adult-level crime thriller. Korine's direction made it almost impossible for me to see past the disgusting utilization of these former Disney stars and into any kind of tangible plot. While I enjoyed the peculiar performances for the most part and how passionate this entire crew seemed to be about telling this story, it was hard for me to take Korine seriously when he spends the majority of his time softly relishing in the bikini-clad bodies of these characters.
My Rating: ★½
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