Spring Breakers (2013)
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Critics Consensus: Spring Breakers blends stinging social commentary with bikini cheesecake and a bravura James Franco performance.
Critics Consensus: Spring Breakers blends stinging social commentary with bikini cheesecake and a bravura James Franco performance.
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Movie Info
Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and Faith (Selena Gomez) have been best friends since grade school. They live together in a boring college dorm and are hungry for adventure. All they have to do is save enough money for spring break to get their shot at having some real fun. A serendipitous encounter with rapper "Alien" (James Franco) promises to provide the girls with all the thrill and excitement they could hope for. With the encouragement of their new … More- Rating:
- R (for strong sexual content, language, nudity, drug use and violence throughout)
- Genre:
- Drama , Action & Adventure , Art House & International , Comedy , Cult Movies
- Directed By:
- Harmony Korine
- Written By:
- Harmony Korine
- In Theaters:
- Mar 22, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Jul 9, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $14.1M
Cast
-
James Franco
as Alien -
Selena Gomez
as Faith -
Vanessa Hudgens
as Candy -
Ashley Benson
as Brit -
Rachel Korine
as Cotty -
Gucci Mane
as Archie
Related News & Features
-
Spring Breakers 2 in Development
– Variety
-
Gravity, Spring Breakers in Cahiers' Top 10 of 2013
– Rotten Tomatoes
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Critic Reviews for Spring Breakers
All Critics (165) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (108) | Rotten (57)
The movie is too calculated to shock. Korine just wants to be the danger he's warning us about.
It's campy and comic at times, but Korine also gives the film a downbeat, melancholic edge, with voiceovers, pointed repetition of dialogue and images, and hallucinatory camera work, sound and editing.
Neon bright and all raw energy, Spring Breakers is a pulsating paradox of a movie, both a tangerine dream and a cultural reality check, a pop artifact that simultaneously exploits and explores the shallowness of pop artifacts.
Korine's story is a searing indictment of today's hedonistic, nihilistic youth, and his script is loaded with sharp, telling dialogue that exposes the rotten moral cores of its characters.
The film stands, overall, as one of the director's richer provocations ...
Once a year, St. Petersburg is awash with thoughtless, unpleasant people making poor decisions. This spring, Korine is one of them.
Korine's most entertaining film to date.
It's Malick-meets-dubstep amid post-"Kids"-skin-and-sin with the costumes of Pussy Riot and a sunset-by-the-sea Britney Spears sing-along by Alien and the girls that is both ridiculous and touching.
...a thoroughly detestable piece of gutter trash masquerading as some kind of abstract piece of pop art.
I'm not sure how many glow sticks died in the making of Spring Breakers, but I am sure that it was worth it.
A trippy, florescent whirl of boobs and bongs.
I couldn't get past the feeling that this was basically the director's softcore material masquerading as a feature film
Often exploitative and completely gratuitous, it succeeds in also exploring the recklessness of youth...
Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers is rough around the edges, visually pleasing, experimental and a downright bizarre film, but one that's worthy of at least one viewing.
A ridiculous, repetitive and empty drama.
You're probably gonna hate Spring Breakers, but I bet you love it, too.
If you can look beyond Harmony Korine's misogynistic, uncomfortably leering view of the women in his film, there is some stuff to enjoy, though the film is held back by an unfortunate lack of substance.
"Spring Breakers" might engender multiple viewings and a cult status à la "Scarface." Korine, unfortunately, jumps the gun by frequently repeating lines of Franco's dialogue in voiceover, as if "Spring Breakers" already is on repeat.
While films such as Spring Breakers should never be blamed for gun violence, they can be used to gauge just how much people truly care about such issues. And how quickly they are willing to forget.
Director Korine obviously wants to make some profound comment about the debauchery of Floridian spring-breaking but he's sucked into the whole sleazy world head-first.
A simultaneous celebration and criticism of youth.
In many ways, this trashy, dazzling but enigmatic film belongs to Franco's Alien, a wannabe gangsta who just doesn't have the guts or heart to be a cold-hearted thug.
The ideals of freedom, paradise and the American dream pulse in a neon coloured, bubble-gum scented descent into darkness
Parents will look on with dismay; others will leave feeling bemused but thoroughly entertained.
It's not exactly an exploitation film, and it's not exactly an art film, but it's also both at the same time. It's the type of experience that blows your mind but convinces you that nobody else on the planet is going to "get" it.
Audience Reviews for Spring Breakers
Somewhere between a mindless music video and Terence Malick... grotesque, compelling cinema (European in style, kind of like Drive was) that uses little dialogue and (I'm not the first reviewer to say) "hallucinatory" effects to make its point about how desensitized to sex and violence a whole generation is... about how we play the roles before we even know what they are. Brave and interesting work - much better than the "Disney Kids Go To College" movie I half-expected.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Exploitation of the youth market is nothing new, nor is the same masquerading as social commentary. The only rarity is how well Harmony Korine manages this overlong music video/Abercombie & Fitch commercial. The basement party crowd get their prerequisite boobs and gunplay, the social commentary crowd get ... not so much, which is better for the basement party set anyway. Like many American International films before it, you can wait to see it.
MoreSuper Reviewer
This movie is off the flippin' chain. I don't think it's necessarily effective satire because the line between social commentary and glorification of debauchery gets too blurred, but I could hardly tear my eyes away from style auteur Harmony Korine's candy-crush guilt-free Bacchanal. The clever juxtapositions of innocence and immorality paint an extreme, not-far-off culture of excess. The girls engage in kinky-baby playground games, quickly devolving into a terrifying barrage of sex, drugs, profanity, and armed robbery. The non-stop depravation is wicked and titillating, and the gang's crime and violence spree underscored by plaintive pop ballads is at once brutal and eerily beautiful.
Sweethearts of PG-13 television Ashley Benson and Vanessa Hudgens prove their bad-babe mettle as amoral provocateurs who sell every curse and finger-pistol. Corn-rowed gold-grilled James Franco is kerazy, as usual, and appallingly impressive when he submits to the girls' sexually deviant ploys. Disney Princess Selena Gomez, as the churchy good-girl, shows off her enviable Spring Break bod and ultimately reveals some decent dramatic chops in a silent, teary face-off with Alien.
Super Reviewer
Spring Breakers is an intriguing film. What initially starts out as a superficial focus on hedonistic desires evolves (devolves?) into a nightmare come to life. The visual sequences build on repetition to the point where the audience is desensitized to all the wild partying. At first all the attractive young coeds in various states of undress threatens to become a part of what it ultimately condemns. Even when the girls are in a college classroom their minds are focused on less academic pursuits. But just when you acclimate to the debauched surroundings, the director ratchets up the intensity. There are scenes that have such an uneasy feel, they degenerate from a lighthearted good time into horror within seconds. The picture grows dark. It's that ability to juggle a rapidly shifting narrative that makes Spring Breakers such a fascinating watch. It's much more than what the trailers promote. It dares to show the consequences and for that reason, Spring Breakers deserves your attention.
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Super Reviewer
Spring Breakers Quotes
- Faith:
- Hi grandma. Having so much fun here. This place... is special. I am starting to think this is the most spiritful place I've ever been. I think we found ourselves here. We finally gotta see some other parts of the world. We saw some beautiful things here. God, I can't believe how many new friends we made. Friends from all over the place. I mean everyone was so sweet here. So warm and friendly. We' It's way more than just having a good time. God, it's so nice to get a break from my auntie for a little while. We'll always remember the trip. I wanna go back again next year with you. Something so amazing, magical. Something so beautiful. Feels as if the world is perfect. Like it's never gonna end.
- Alien:
- Look at all mah shit.
- Alien:
- Spring break. Spring break. Spring break fo'ever.
- Alien:
- Bikini's and big booties - that's what it's all about.
- Faith:
- Please come home with me.
- Brit:
- Faith, we're not gonna let anything happen to you.
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