Spring Breakers REVIEWS
Reviewed by Lee Marshall
A day-glo, hip-hop drug rush of a film centring on a group of four high-school girlfriends who go on a hedonistic sex-’n’-substance-abuse spring break in a Florida resort, Harmony Korine’s remarkable fifth feature is like nothing the US maverick has ever done — or anyone else, come to that. The film will nevertheless irritate those who fail to see the rather innocent fairy-tale and dream of teen freedom beneath Korine’s apparent glorification of a world devoid of values and obsessed with misogynistic sex, binge-drinking, guns, empty fame and money. Spring Breakers has an ambivalent rapport with
the trashy world it mirrors. Visually ravishing, veined with comedy and exhilarating bursts of vio- lent bad-girl empowerment, and garnished with a driving electro-dance and hip-hop soundtrack, it looks at times like a smutty, auteurish MTV pop video — except with a dramatic arc. Easily Korine’s most commercial film to date,
Spring Breakers should notch up sales in several territories and become a cult film at home in the US, where the censors are unlikely to give it any- thing worse than an R rating. The fact three of its drug-taking bad-girl protagonists — Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Selena Gomez — hail from squeaky-clean film and TV backgrounds, from High School Musical to the Disney Channel, is no coincidence: Korine has great fun besmirching the teen idols. We are transported to the drab small town
Stories We Tell Reviewed by Mark Adams
Sarah Polley’s tender, thoughtful and complex inves- tigation into her past and the relationship between her parents, UK-born actor Michael Polley and Canadian actress and casting director Diane Polley, offers a candid portrait of a family with secrets. Stories We Tell shows a lucid and balanced family
and friends (there is no real drama here) who tell their stories eloquently and rationally. But while the story — which received some press attention — may have been a big deal in Canada, an interna- tional audience will find it lacks focus, as if Polley is unsure quite why she wants to make the documen- tary. It is never clear whether it is cathartic for her or her family members. However it is powerful and poignant when
introducing her father, whose reading of his mem- oir at a recording studio acts as the backbone to the film. Using a mixture of Super-8 home-movie material, interviews with siblings and friends and — rather intriguingly — some faux Super-8 recon- structions, Polley presents a portrait of a marriage that, like so many others, has its ups and downs but also has a secret at its core. Polley’s mother Diane appears to have been a
dynamic and vivacious woman who fell in love with Michael Polley when they were acting together. But when Michael gave up performing, the family argument goes, he became a milder and quieter character than the man she had married.
n 12 Screen International at Toronto September 8, 2012
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
US. 2012. 92mins Director/screenplay Harmony Korine Production companies Muse Productions, Rabbit Bandini Productions, Radar Pictures, Morton Jankel Zander Inc International sales Kinology,
www.kinology.eu Producers Chris Hanley, Charles-Marie Anthonioz, Jordan Gertner, David Zander Cinematography Benoit Debie Editor Douglas Crise Production designer Elliott Hostetter Music Skrillex, Cliff Martinez Main cast Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, James Franco, Rachel Korine, Heather Morris, Gucci Mane
where the four girlfriends live. The first three, bra- zen Cotty (Korine’s wife, Rachel) and double-act sex-kittens Candy and Britt (Hudgens and Benson) are more a sexy chorus line than distinct characters at first; it is serious, dark-haired, dark-eyed Faith (Gomez) — who we see attending a Christian youth group — who is the one to watch, as the most cautious but also the most mature of the four, not to mention the only really rounded character. Lacking the money to make it down south to
Florida for a spring break, Cotty, Candy and Britt decide to rob a Chicken Shack armed with fake
guns and hammers. The inventively shot heist goes without a hitch, and winning over Faith — whose Christian qualms never put up much of a fight — the four head down to Florida, where they change into the bikinis that will be their default garb for the rest of the film, and launch straight into the all- day, all-night drugs, sex and alcohol-fuelled party glimpsed in the opening sequence. Spring Breakers is an exhilarating visual and
aural assault, with a soundtrack that barely lets up. And you’ll never look at pink balaclavas again in quite the same way.
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
Can. 2012. 108mins Director/screenplay Sarah Polley Production company National Film Board of Canada International sales National Film Board of Canada,
c.routhier@
nfb.ca Producer Anita Lee Executive producer Silva Basmajian Cinematography Iris Ng Editor Mike Munn Production designer Lea Carlson Music Jonathan Goldsmith
Diane died from cancer when Sarah was young,
but after her death there was a long-running family joke about Sarah’s lack of resemblance to Michael. Sarah discovers it is more than a joke as she starts to investigate whether her mother had an affair and who her real father might be. The truth slowly emerges — though the film does not make a big deal about the outcome — with the various participants offering their insights into Diane’s life, and with the director herself often staying on the sidelines.
The film initially leads the audience to assume
much of what they are watching is family home- video material, though towards the end it becomes clear much of the footage is re-enacted, raising questions about versions of memory and what ver- sion of a recollection is being presented. In the end, perhaps, it is a modest family story
— the sort of one that crops up regularly on televi- sion series about families — but it is one told with candour and affection.
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