Seeking out the
5000 greatest films
in a century of cinema
Spring Breakers
Directed by
Harmony Korine
Produced by Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Jordan Gertner, Chris Hanley, and David Zander
Written by Harmony Korine
Produced by Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Jordan Gertner, Chris Hanley, and David Zander
Written by Harmony Korine
With:
James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, and Gucci Mane
Cinematography:
Benoît Debie
Editing: Douglas Crise
Music: Cliff Martinez and Skrillex
Editing: Douglas Crise
Music: Cliff Martinez and Skrillex
Runtime:
94 min
Release Date: 22 March 2013
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Color: Color
Release Date: 22 March 2013
Aspect Ratio: 2.35 : 1
Color: Color
In his most effective film to date, auteur provocateur
Harmony Korine (Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Trash Humpers) casts
former squeaky-clean child stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley
Benson in tale of debauchery and crime in the girls-gone-wild setting of
Florida during Spring Break. The first half of the film plays like a 45 minute
psychedelic Sunkist commercial from hell, but then James Franco shows up and,
amazingly, the film starts to work. It doesn’t ever become a good movie, but Spring
Breakers is less maddeningly “arty” than Korine’s other films and he does find a
kind of hedonistic poetry in the saturated visuals, repetitive dialogue and
excessively reckless behavior. This is a movie that should be as morally
repugnant as Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers (one of my
all time least favorite films), except that Korine is able to find a humorous
spirit in his depiction of empty, nihilistic, out-of-control youth that the
tone-deaf Stone could never understand. James Franco plays Alien, the wanna-be
gangsta the girls hook up with, as if he’s the bastard son of Willem Dafoe's
Bobby Peru from Wild At Heart. I have never enjoyed Franco as much
as I did in this film. I’d next like to see a buddy movie where his character
and Nicolas Cage’s Bad Lieutenant go on a road trip to Tangiers.