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Rating: Where will today's crazy generation of youngsters go to die? What do they have in mind, besides alcohol, drugs, and a distorted idea of sex? Probably nothing, and perhaps this is exactly what Korine wants to convey to us: the absolute lack of values in the new generations.
Let's take a step back: Harmony Korine has been at the center of criticism, discussions, and analyses since the release of "Gummo" in 1997. It is probably these that have given him that aura of a "cult" director, more a product of the label imposed upon him than his actual artistic ability. But beyond considerations about the filmmaker's past, it is precisely his latest feature film, "Spring Breakers," that can tell us where Korine might be heading in the future.
The subject is one that might make some frown, and I initially had many doubts about approaching this film: trailers, feelings, opinions heard here and there, the actresses' names. Too many things reeked of a trivial "new millennium catch" for little miss party girls. The result, albeit with some "childish" elements, is exactly the opposite of what I had imagined.
The film has been received in a decidedly ambivalent manner: I am among those who liked it, and I say it right away to avoid any sort of corner-saving.
Four girls bored by the monotonous life of college. They need to change the air, change their life, wake up. From children to "adults." Among others, Korine chooses Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez, "clean" faces that have shown their purity as girls on TV in children's entertainment shows: the icons that entertain children not yet in double digits. It's no coincidence that they are placed in a context that is precisely the collapse of the new generations.
The film is a depiction of the hell that the four girls will experience. A self-created hell that responds to the demands of ephemeral freedom. There is no consolation in Korine's film, only the realization of a youthful world sliding into the abyss. Easy money, "fun," the pretense of feeling grown-up. An ensemble that Korine shows us with vivid, pulsating photography and a soundtrack often in the foreground. In this sense, it is no coincidence that one of the most significant scenes centers around a song by another youth icon, Britney Spears.
The film evolves in a not entirely convincing manner: the subplot involving a James Franco in a delirious state is somewhat forced. His conflict with a local mini-gangster seems to be thrown in almost by accident, almost to suddenly give a thriller twist to a work that was standing strong precisely because it was well-directed towards a specific aspect.
Overall, it still remains a film that, in the "youthful" narrative, draws the lines of a visible drift that manifests itself also in our country. The underage escorts, the increasingly frequent cases of prostitution for a new iPhone are there to prove it. Korine builds on all this a work that is appropriately harsh, engaging, even "cunning" in its staging. Plus, there is a great sequence to highlight: the one where Korine shows us, with a long tracking shot from inside a car, the robbery that will allow our little go-getters to pay for their vacation. Also worth noting on a formal level is the obsessive repetition of phrases, almost as if to underline the sense of estrangement and "dilation" of time experienced through alcohol and drugs.
A film to be savored in its various nuances.
Three and a half stars.
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