Spring Breakers: Viviendo al límite

I watched this film on Amazon Prime where its genres are listed as "comedy, drama", which does such a huge disservice to what this film is.

It is in no way a comedy at all so get that idea out of your head before you watch this film. In reality it is a dark crime drama which has an incredible tone and vibe to it.

At times tone and vibe are favoured over plot and storytelling, but having digested this film a bit I don't think I mind. There were some wildly good visuals in this film and the direction from Harmony Korine was top notch.

I loved the performances from all of the cast. Franco's character was very out there but it worked in the context of the film.

A wildly underrated film which was probably hampered by the fact that people were expecting a frat bro comedy, when in actuality this is a much more elevated and stylish affair.

Very creative stunning shots. Watching the violence and crime scenes mixed in with the spring break experience, brought back that sense of shock I felt as a kid watching spring breakers party for the first time. Lots of beautiful girls and there's a sense of comedy and irony. I loved when the heavy gangster is playing Britney Spears on the piano.

This is a strange film. On the one hand, it looks likes an extended music video, filled with mindless scenes of teenagers having one big party. On the other hand, there's clearly more to it. Some characters are so one-dimensional and cartoon-like, that the whole film becomes a sort of mockery of the modern teenage culture. This ambiguity is very clever, because the film appeals to a teenage audience as well as to the art-house audience Harmony Korine is usually associated with.

But at the same time, this ambiguity stands in the way of 'Spring Breakers' being a really good film. Unlike other serious movies about teenage culture, like 'Thirteen', 'Ghost World', Korine's own 'Kids' or the recent 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower', this film looks too easy. The temptation of showing lots of girls in bikini has been stronger than the ambition of trying to tell something meaningful.

Still, there are some nice moments. The hold-up in the restaurant is beautifully filmed from the window of a car slowly passing by. It's nice that, later on in the film, the director shows some short moments of what happened inside the restaurant. I would have liked more ambitious film making like that, and less footage of wild parties.

Spring Breakers highlights the mindless popular culture that surrounds youth of this generation. The reason for its controversy stems from the fact that its target audience found its plot to be pointless, even though that was the point. This film depicts the shallowness of the modern definition of what is 'cool', like idolizing people that suck, those that contribute nothing to society but cheap entertainment. This sort of fascination blindly controls youth, the main reason so many did not understand the meaning behind this movie: they are blind to its influences. They think week long drinking binges, whoring themselves out, and having no goals is cool, because YOLO. However, this film is based off of these components and its audience deems the plot as pointless. Funny. Spring Breakers is like this generation looking itself directly in the mirror.

Overall, Spring Breakers is full of outstanding graphics, bright colors, provocative scenes, and young Disney turned Hollywood stars. It was fun yet hard to watch, depending how serious of a reality check you need (assuming you even understood that it was one)

Spring Breakers is one of those films, you keep wanting to switch off, but have to get to end, it's not exactly a good film, but the story is such that you have to know what comes next.

It's so outrageously over the top, that it pretty much belongs in the fantasy genre, however there are a few concepts which are sadly all too realistic.

James Franco is good, but is like a parrot with gold teeth, he repeats many lines over and over. Selina Gomez does a fair job.

Nonsense, but watchable, the ending is at least bold. 6/10