Project X meets ATL in this coming of age movie about a spring break gone wrong. Spring Breakers caused much controversy not only for its “R” rating but also for two particular members in its cast. Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens step out of their traditional Disney channel roles into a racy and fast-paced spring break movie revolving around drugs, sex, and violence.
Spring break among college students is one of the most highly anticipated events of the year, and for Cotty, Candy, Brit, and Faith, it is no different. The four girls are determined to do whatever it takes to go on spring break and leave their miserable and boring lives in their small college town. When they realize they have fallen short of their monetary goals, three of the girls decide to rob a restaurant to make up the remainder of the funds without consulting their Jesus absorbed friend named Faith (Gomez).
Despite not approving of their activities, Faith decides to go along for the ride and embarks on a journey involving drinking, smoking, and partying. Gomez fits well into her role of being the shy and “moral” character of the group, trying to keep her three blonde friends from making any rash decisions. Faith eventually fails as she and her friends are arrested after being seen taking lines of cocaine at a party, and the four girls are escorted to jail. Although none of them have the money to post bail, they are mysteriously released and soon discover that an infamous drug dealer in the area, named Alien, has taken a liking to them and decides to take them under his wing. James Franco plays the convincing role of Alien, which is very reminiscent of his role of Saul in Pineapple Express, only an edgier and more violent personality.
Alien makes his affection for the shy Faith known, and despite her earlier statements of feelings like spring break and Florida is where she belonged, she suddenly feels uncomfortable and demands to leave. This is the last that Gomez is seen in the movie, which at this point has reached its halfway mark. After Gomez leaves, her three friends find themselves attracted to Alien and involved in the violence caused by other drug dealers in the area, mainly his arch rival played by Gucci Maine. Cotty, Candy, and Brit find they have dug themselves into a deep hole that will cause them to risk their lives and the life of Alien, who they have come to love.
Spring Breakers began as a movie revolving around the college party scene on a classic spring break. The majority of the first half of the movie involved montages of binge drinking in fraternity houses, on the beach, and in hotel rooms. Along with long sequences of nudity and college students inhaling drugs were flashes of a plot line, but it wasn’t until the girls were arrested at almost halfway through Spring Breakers does any kind of plot come about. The scene in which the girls rob the restaurant is a thirty second sequences followed by clips of the four drinking, partying, and taking the bus down to Florida along with other spring breakers.
After the party montages are past and the girls are released from jail, Spring Breakers takes and entirely new route and transforms from the party scenes of Project X to the drug violence of ATL. The scenes are calmer, more sexual, and scarier as Alien changes the girls’ entire partying lifestyle and mindset. The montages change from partying to the girls committing atrocious crimes with Alien at their side while a Britney Spears song set to a piano plays in the background.
Although Spring Breakers attempted to be a “coming of age film” for three bad girls looking to “be somebody,” it was ultimately a poorly made movie with a limited plot line that could be described in under a minute. It was often repetitive and the same scene was shown over and over again for effect, but this really just made the movie monotonous. Franco was the biggest success of the movie as he accomplished his goal of being lovable and eerie at the same time, creating an uncanny sense of distrust among the audience. Despite Franco’s good performance, the plot line made Spring Breakers almost impossible to watch for ninety minutes as it was tiring to watch continual montages of college students partying for almost half of the movie before any actual plot developed.
In all, Spring Breakers is not a movie that would be recommended to someone looking for a movie about a classic college spring break, and most definitely would not be recommended to anyone under 17 due to excessive nudity scenes, vulgar language, sexual scenes and comments, and violence. Just because a teenager sees Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens in the credits does not make Spring Breakers an appropriate movie, because this is definitely no High School Musical.
This is a guest review written by Kirsten Carney