Spring Breakers Information

Spring Breakers is a 2013 American crime comedy-drama thriller film written and directed by Harmony Korine, starring James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine and Gucci Mane. The film follows four college-aged girls who decide to rob a fast food restaurant in order to pay for their spring break.

The film was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.

Plot

Childhood friends Faith (Selena Gomez), Brit (Ashley Benson), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) plan to go on a spring break vacation, but don't have enough money. Brit and Candy then rob a fast-food restaurant using excessive violence, with Cotty as the getaway driver. Faith is taken aback by Brit and Candy's actions, but overlooks their crimes, and they travel to Florida.

During a party, they meet Alien (James Franco), a rapper who later bails them out of jail when they're arrested alongside some of his friends destroying a hotel room during another party. Faith becomes uncomfortable when Alien reveals he's a drug dealer, and decides to leave. Brit, Candy and Cotty return to Alien's apartment, where Brit and Candy hook up with Alien and start to build a relationship with him, while Cotty sleeps in the next room.

Alien takes the trio to a strip club, where he runs into his rival Big Arch (Gucci Mane), who tells Alien to stop selling drugs in his territory. Alien ignores him and continues selling drugs, as well as robbing spring breakers with the girls' help. In retaliation, Big Arch executes a drive-by shooting against Alien's car. After being shot in the arm, Cotty decides to leave as well, while Alien, Brit and Candy decide to take revenge on Big Arch. They go to his waterfront mansion in Alien's boat, but are spotted by Big Arch's men, who kill Alien before being killed by the girls.

Brit and Candy kill Big Arch and his men and steal their money. The girls kiss Alien's dead body and then they leave Florida in Big Arch's car.

Cast

• Vanessa Hudgens as Candy
• Ashley Benson as Brit
• James Franco as Alien
• Rachel Korine as Cotty
• Gucci Mane as Archie
• Selena Gomez as Faith
• Heather Morris as Bess
• Ash Lendzion as Forest
• Emma Holzer as Heather
• The ATL Twins

Production

According to Harmony Korine, he wrote the film partially to make up for his own spring breaks, as he had been fully devoted to skateboarding, and therefore missed out on what he saw as opportunities for hedonistic pursuits. The original lineup for the lead girls were Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Rachel Korine, and Emma Roberts. Rachel Korine was the first to be confirmed in the project. Roberts dropped out in early 2012 upon hearing she would need to gain body fat for her role. Director Korine had purposely collected a group of well-known young actresses with a similar reputation to Roberts in Hollywood.

James Franco's character in the film is based on underground rap artist Dangeruss. There was much speculation that his character was based around another rap artist by the name of Riff Raff. Speaking to the GQ magazine in May 2012, Franco said: "Of course Harmony and I looked at some of Riff Raff's videos as inspiration, but he was one of a number of people we looked at. I would say the biggest influence on the role was this local Florida rapper named Dangeruss. He's fairly unknown, but he was down there in the place, living the life, and he became the biggest model for me and he's in the movie." The film was shot in March and April 2012 in and around St. Petersburg, Florida. Skrillex has been confirmed to be producing the score for the film.

Release

A three-minute preview of Spring Breakers was released at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in May 2012. The entire film premiered at the 69th Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2012. The film was released in New York and Los Angeles on March 15, 2013. The film was released nationwide on March 22, 2013. The film is set to be released in the UK on April 5, 2013.

Reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 70% "fresh" based on reviews from 102 critics, and a "rotten" score of 58% from top critics, with a rating average of 6.4 out of 10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Spring Breakers blends stinging social commentary with bikini cheesecake and a bravura James Franco performance." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 63 out of 100 based on reviews from 35 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Xan Brooks of The Guardian said the film is Korine's "most fully released, purely satisfying feature film since Gummo." Emma Seligman of The Huffington Post described the film as "Scarface meets Britney Spears." Guy Lodge of Variety gave it a negative review saying, "this attractively fizzy pic may be a shock to the system for fans of teen queens Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, but remains pretty toothless titillation by its writer-helmer's standards." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter noted that James Franco gives one of his more bizarre performances in his unpredictable career, saying "he's a cross between Bo Derek in 10 and Richard Kiel in Moonraker." Oliver Lyttlelton of IndieWire gave the film a B, stating that the film would be a future cult favorite for "midnight moviegoers".

The film has received an R rating from the MPAA for "strong sexual content, language, nudity, drug use, and violence throughout". The film has received a 18 rating from the BBFC in the UK for "hard drug use, strong sex, sexualised nudity, violence & language". The film has received a 12 rating with a warning from the CNC in France for transgressive and violent universe.