Selena Gomez. Vanessa Hudgens. Harmony Korine. Any of the above three names attached to a film ought to scream “awful” to any fan of ‘high’ cinema, and perhaps rightly so. Yet in a weirdly compulsive match, the combination worked wonders with James Franco to bring audiences a terrifying, bubblegum-pop feature that marked the death of sugar-coated depictions of teens and brought about a watershed in recognition of the destructive, murderous tendencies of girls who more closely resembled Pussy Riot than anyone out of High School Musical.
Featuring landmark creepy performances from Gucci Mane, the ATL Twins and Franco, doing his best to imitate southern rapper Dangeruss (not Riff Raff), Spring Breakers gave director Korine a chance to play with the pink-yellow cinematography which defines the film visually; blood-red spring sunsets, neon green bikinis, and the girls’ lurid pink balaclavas combine in a disturbingly beautiful scene in which Franco’s Alien and his teenage posse brutalise rival drug dealers to the maudlin strains of Britney Spears’ ‘Everytime’. It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with the ‘Singing in the Rain’ ultraviolence scene from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. The film’s visual stylisation, overstated and exaggerated to an almost dreamlike state, is arguably its strongest point.
For a film about extreme consumption and the excesses of youth, Spring Breakers does well to avoid criticising the girls as they tear through strip clubs and drug mansions. Instead, we are shown a type of happy vulgarity that allows us to make up our own minds about the crimes they commit. The modern teenage girl, according to Spring Breakers, is more than capable of looking after herself.
