Harmony Korine 2012 USA
Starring: Vanessa Hudgens, James Franco, Rachel Korine, Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez, Gucci Mane, Jeff Jarrett
*SPOILER ALERT*
When I first heard that Spring Breakers was in production I was bewildered. Two former Disney girls in an apparent teen movie about partying and debauchery was predictable but putting Harmony Korine at the helm sounded like someone's idea of a joke. For those unfamiliar with Korine's work, he's best known for wildly inventive, often controversial films like Julien Donkey Boy and Trash Humpers (even crazier than the title suggests) so I couldn't imagine how he even got the gig. To be honest, even after watching it I still can't. Either way, on first look I thought it could go one of two ways; either Korine would create a disturbingly bizarre work that would drive his stars mad or he would be neutered by the producers and make something frighteningly average. As it turns out, it was neither, Korine instead favouring a decadent, gleeful take on morality with an interesting religious subtext. Admittedly the first half is dull, shallow and exactly what you'd expect from a film of its kind but after Selena Gomez's aptly-named Faith buggers off and James Franco rolls up as white rapper Alien everything gets going. Faith, you see, represents morality and Alien Satan. Alien used to be part of big cheese Archie's gang but left to form his own, taking the sweltering south of Florida as his and leaving Archie with the north. Straight off he admits that he's "not from this planet", a phrase that's used earlier in the film to describe Candy and Brittany (Hudgens and Benson) and something that Alien seems to pick up on immediately. As soon as he has 'rescued' the girls from the police he tells Faith that she can leave but her friends will be staying with him and takes them to a beachside compound guarded by the animalistic Twins who only he can apparently control, a modern equivalent of the multi-headed hellhound Cerberus blocking the entrance (and exit) of Hades. There he sets about instructing them in the joys of his business and encouraging them to indulge in all of the seven deadly sins. Soon they encounter Archie again insisting that the state is his world and he strikes down upon them with furious vengeance and shoots Rachel Korine's Cotty in the same arm that Cain used to kill Abel (it's an idea that was also referenced in The Night Of The Hunter with Robert Mitchum's Preacher Powell having LOVE and HATE tattooed on his knuckles). With the evil side of her personality disabled her good side is free to take over and she departs Florida and the film. As retaliation Alien arms the remaining girls with shotguns and ski masks and, in a surprisingly speedy sequence, they seek revenge. The simplicity of Archie's death is pretty fitting really because the rapper Gucci Mane plays him with a real lethargy. Even when he gets the film's best line he can't seem to put any feeling into it. Others fare better with Hudgens not only utterly believable as a sociopath but also worrying convincing, and Franco almost unrecognisable under cornrows and a steel grin, spitting lyrics and greed. It's a strange film but somehow totally Korine-esque despite its cast, not least in the alarming scene where Candy threatens Alien with a gun then makes him fellate it. I don't know that I'd recommend it as such but at the very least the second half is worthy of note.
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