Spring Breakers

Spring Breakers, 2012

A group of college students, Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson), and Cotty (Rachel Korine), are desperate to go on a spring break to Florida. A few of the girls pull off an armed robbery to fund their trip, and they head down to the beach. But after a few days of partying, they are arrested, only to be bailed out by Alien (James Franco), a self-styled "gangster" who leads the girls down an even more dangerous path.

Does anyone else ever feel left out when you watch a movie that has repeatedly been described as "love it or hate it" and instead of feeling either of those strong emotions you just think it's, like, fine?

The best part of the film is the overall style and look of it. The heavily neon costuming and lighting nicely mirror the sensory overload of a wild spring break party. As the film moves into its final third, the deep saturation of neon pink begins to take on an eerie, demented quality. The characters have gone from taking a break from their normal lives to existing in a completely different, alien mindset.

There are also some good laughs to be mined from the self-serious way that the characters talk about themselves and spring break. Fed up with living in their small town, Faith sincerely opines that going on spring break is how the girls can "find themselves", as if drinking games and unhinged groping are a path to enlightenment as opposed to an exhilarating teenage indulgence. And their posturing is matched by that of Alien, who thinks that his DVD collection and Calvin Klein body sprays somehow make him a triumphant figure. (I'm sorry, but is there anything sadder or more off-putting than a man dousing himself in TWO different body scents?).

And even though it's a bit cliche, I did enjoy some of the "who's actually the dangerous one here?" dynamic between Alien and the young women. Alien clearly believes that he's exploiting them, but he doesn't understand just how far they will go for a thrill.

Fundamentally, though, I thought that the film lacked some grounding. Several times I just didn't feel like the way that the movie was shot aligned well with a point of view, especially in the first half. I get why we have so many jiggle shots in the sequences on the beach. But why are we zooming in on crotches when the girls are just hanging out with each other in the dorm hallway? Several times the leering eye of the camera didn't make sense to me.

I was also unsure of what to make of the film's portrayal of Big Arch (Gucci Mane) and his entire organization. On one hand, the film is very comfortable satirizing the extent of Alien's shallow appropriation of Black culture (his cornrows, grill, rap career, use of racial slurs, Kool Aid, etc). But where does that position Archie and his colleagues? Are they the "real thing"? How are we meant to take, then, that they are .

There are some really great visual moments--and yes, the Britney Spears "Everytime" montage is really good--and it certainly held my interest from beginning to end. But it loses something when and it never manages to recapture the character dynamics of the beginning of the film.