The film follows the exploits of four college friends: Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine). They are bored with their dull and repetitive educational existence, one might even say suffering from ennui, and feel that a trip to beaches of Florida for spring break would alleviate their suffering and raise them to a higher plane of awareness. But they have no money, or not enough.

The solution? Candy, Brit and Cotty rob a diner, with squirt guns. Of course, they don't tell the innocent faith, until after the fact. And perhaps she's not so innocent, because though she doesn't approve (sort of) of armed robbery, she happily goes on the trip with the funds provided, so desperate is she to change something about her life.

What follows is an odd admixture of salacious and innocent. The girls drink, drive scooters around the city, hang around in parking lots singing, and party at the beach. Everything seems to be going well, until they attend a particularly rowdy affair at a motel, with hard drugs easily available. The police arrive, and the four young women are arrested, with no money for bail. But fear not, local rapper / drug dealer Alien (James Franco) pays the money for their release, and adopts the girls as his personal totems. This is when things get creepy.

Alien, along with his employees the ATL Twins (Sidney and Thurman Sewell), brings the girls into the seedy underbelly of St. Petersburg, where they mix with thugs, dealers, users and criminals. Faith wants none of this, and after much angst gets on the bus to return home. But the other three are excited by the danger, and wade deeper into the murky waters, at least until a confrontation with Alien's former friend, gangster Archie (Gucci Mane) leads to another crisis in the group.

If this plot summary seems logical and straightforward, don't be misled. The film is not presented in anything like a normal narrative format. It's more of an experiential, impressionistic take, with multiple flashbacks and short scenes that get the point across, but don't flow in sequential order. It feels like a fever dream or a long ago memory resurfacing. This disjointed visual style helps to underscore how disconnected the girls are: from their families, from the wider world, from reality.

They seem to drift along bouncing around from stimulus to stimulus, in a gauzy world of make believe. They don't seem to see any possible consequences of their actions, until those consequences forcefully present themselves. For Faith, all it takes is getting arrested, for Cotty it takes getting shot in the arm. For Brit and Candy, their commitment to the visceral thrill is total, and consequence doesn't seem to matter.

The four girls all give good performances, with perhaps Gomez delivering the best. Her sweet, conflicted Faith is a treat. The agonized pleading with her friends to leave with her after Alien springs them is probably the best acting in the film. And James Franco deserves special credit for his gonzo turn as the would be gangster. He's oily (both physically and otherwise), trashy, disturbing, menacing, exuberant and incredibly appealing, all at the same time. He's like a street preacher for drugs and sex, and provides much of the energy that drives the second half of the film.

Thematically, one could say that Korine is exploring the debauched life of the American teenager, and the disconnectedness mentioned earlier that they feel. Or it could be about the glamor of the criminal life. Or about how predators groom their young victims. Or about feminism and female empowerment. More likely, all of these things. The point is that Korine is more interested in asking questions than answering them. No overarching message is discernible. There's no poignant emotional development or neat summing up. That's not to say that there isn't a point, but that the point is the experience of seeing how things are, or could be, in a highly stylized presentation. Korine is happy to let the viewer draw their own conclusions about what it all means, which is evident by the widely divergent opinions about the film.

Nevertheless, there's nothing slapdash or thrown together about Spring Breakers. Everything we see has been consciously selected and deliberately planned out. So, the thematic ambiguity is clearly intentional. Sure, it can be seen as a reactionary condemnation of the sorts of behavior it displays, but it seems that Korine is more interested in exploring the seamier side of our culture, and in this he largely succeeds. Highly recommended.

The DVD

Video:
The video is 2.40:1 widescreen, and looks good. It's a mix of professional camera work, with some home video thrown in. There are a lot of effects, filters, odd lighting and colors, all to heighten the feeling of unreality, so it can't be judged visually like a traditional film. Once again, though, the feeling is that it looks exactly as the director wishes it to. The Blu-ray image is very sharp and crisp, with colors that pop and really no room for criticism.

Sound:
Audio is DTS 5.1 channel, and sounds great. The soundtrack, by turns driving and softly lilting, is well presented, truly wrapping around the action. As at times there's little dialogue, the music and sound design play an important part in setting the mood and carrying the narrative forward. The viewer truly feels that he is right amidst the action. English and Spanish subtitles are included, but no alternate language track.

Extras:
There are a number of extras included. They are:

Breaking it Down: Behind Spring Breakers
This featurette runs to about twenty two minutes and has interviews with Harmony Korine, Benoit Dobie the cinematographer, actresses Ashley Benson and Selena Gomez, composer Cliff Martinez and others. They discuss the genesis of the film, Korine's desired mood and feel, and how Rachel Korine had to protect Gomez from some of the rowdier extras in the party scenes.

Commentary with Writer Director Harmony Korine
Korine seems to be a very laid back gentleman, but also quite interesting. He discusses the visual style of the film (he wanted it to look like sculpture), how he had collected spring break footage for years prior to making the film, and shooting in some pretty sketchy places in Florida. This is quite interesting.

Deleted Scene
At under a minute, this is just a short scene where the girls hold up a man and discuss the size of his genitals. Not sure why it was cut.

Outtakes
This is almost eight minutes of alternate takes, unused takes, and some goofing around.

Harmony's Ear Candy
This featurette discusses how the music for the film was developed. A lot of time is spent with Cliff Martinez the composer and Randall Poster the music supervisor. Martinez discusses his desire to compose music that went against what the expected tone of the scene would be. Quite engaging.

Vice Featurettes
Three featurettes are presented here, from the folks at Vice. They focus on the ATL Twins (a couple of very interesting, some would say strange, twin brothers who play drug dealers in the film), and the experiences of the towns of Panama City Beach and Daytona Beach with spring break. These are actually quite fun.

Theatrical Trailers
Two trailers, one of them a red band, for the film, both quite good.

TV Spots
Five television spots for the film are presented here.

Final Thoughts:
Spring Breakers seems designed to inflame passions and spark debates, even though Korine declares in the commentary that he wasn't trying to make an indictment of anything. It's brash, gritty, funny, thrilling, and quite a bit unsettling. The contrast between the sweet and innocent exterior of these four girls, and the actions they are willing to perpetrate in their flight from boredom is bracing. This isn't a film for those who don't like ambiguity or an experience that makes them feel conflicted, but it is an example of a director at the top of his game. Check it out.