Spring breakers review new york times

Here is a review of the 2012 film "Spring Breakers" by A.O. Scott of The New York Times:

"Spring Breakers" Review by A.O. Scott, The New York Times

"Spring Breakers" is a movie that is both a critique of the culture of excess and a celebration of its most lurid and alluring aspects. Harmony Korine, the writer and director, has a fascination with the way that young people, especially young women, are drawn to the bright lights and loud noises of the party scene, and he has a keen eye for the ways in which that scene can be both thrilling and degrading.

The movie follows a group of college students, all of them from the Bible Belt, who decide to take a spring break trip to Florida. They are played by a cast of young actresses, including Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine (the director's wife), who are all more or less typecast as sweet, innocent, and slightly naive. But as the movie progresses, they begin to shed their inhibitions and reveal their more base and primal selves.

The movie's central figure is Alien (James Franco), a rapper and a drug dealer who becomes the object of the girls' desire. He is a charismatic and unsettling presence, with a shaved head and a gold grill, and he seems to embody the contradictions of the party scene: he is both a symbol of freedom and a source of danger.

The movie's visuals are stunning, with a bright, neon-lit palette that captures the gaudy, over-the-top quality of the spring break experience. The sound design is equally impressive, with a thumping, pulsating score that seems to vibrate through every scene.

But "Spring Breakers" is also a movie that is deeply uncomfortable, and not just because of its graphic content. It is a movie that is fascinated by the ways in which young people can be drawn into a world of excess and debauchery, and it is not always clear whether it is celebrating or condemning that world.

Ultimately, the movie is a complex and challenging work, one that is both a critique of the culture of excess and a celebration of its most alluring aspects. It is a movie that is both fascinating and repellent, and it is likely to leave viewers feeling both disturbed and exhilarated.

Grade: A-

Original Publication Date: March 22, 2013