Starring: James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez
College students Faith (Gomez), Candy (Hudgens), Brit (Ashley
Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) go down to Saint Petersburg, Florida to party
at spring break, aided by money stolen in a robbery. During their wild time of
partying, the girls are arrested on drugs charges but bailed by local rapper
and narcotic kingpin, Alien (Franco). Intrigued by the four attractive young
women, he takes them under his wing in a life of crime and violence.
A heady cocktail that mixes up Nicholas Winding Refn’s film,
Drive (2011) with a Girls Gone Wild video, Spring Breakers is one of those
films that tries to bridge the gap between arthouse and exploitation to mixed,
but mostly positive, results. The film files at you with vivid colours, and a
barrage of nudity, coarse language and drug abuse but James Franco’s
performance as Alien lies as the film’s centrepiece; able to make such a
larger-than-life creation (in the mould of the similarly over-the-top but less
believable performance of Gary Oldman in True Romance (1994)) and actually make
him seem completely plausible. Selena Gomez, here breaking out into more adult
territory also puts an impressive performance. The intense fashion that the
film hits you with does leave you rather perplexed as a viewer for quite a
while until the main plot kicks in and, with the exception of Selena Gomez’s
Faith, a devout Christian, the female leads don’t seem to have that much in
terms of individual personas (Hudgens’ Candy is a little edgier, but only
marginally) but the film is memorable, if a little strong; but that’s to be
expected.
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