MOVIES
The Bling Ring' feeds on tabloid culture
The kids aren't all right after all.
Funny, disturbing and more than a little pretentious, Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" is a cinematic vanity mirror, cracked by self-loathing and caked with raw apathy, a reflection of our culture's need to covet celebrities and their equally alluring possessions. Less a cautionary tale than an artful attempt to locate depth in some extremely shallow people, the film envisions today's youth culture as a teenage wasted land populated entirely by pampered, insecure narcissists, each one bent on achieving fame (or infam) at any cost.
Based on a series of articles published by Nancy Jo Sales in 2010, the movie chronicles the real-life exploits of the Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch, a gang of adolescent cat
burglarss who swiped more than $3 million worth of luxury brand clothing, jewelry, guns and drugs from the homes of their tabloid heroes, including Paris Hilton, Megan Fox and Orlando Bloom.
Coppola's version denies the crimes were motivated solely by greed, instead painting the thieves as Adderall-addled misfits fueled by the desire to materially commune with the stars they've been taught to emulate since childhood. The group's ringleader is the conniving Rebecca (Katie Chang), who recruits the shy, ambiguously gay Marc (IsraelBroussard) soon after the would-be fashionista arrives in L.A. to finish high school. After a few minor break-ins, the platonic Bonnie and Clyde's crimes intensify with the arrival of the petty, self-absorbed Nicki (Emma Watson) and her
equally hateful adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga from FX's "American Horror Story"). Rounding out the crew is Chloe (Claire Julien), who uses her legion of shady boyfriends to fence the stolen goods)
Watson, fresh from her revelatory performance in last year's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," has never played a character as aggressively unlikeable as Nicki, yet she nails every hair-flip and upward-inflected insult like a born TMZ junkie. For my money, though, the film's best performance belongs to Leslie Mann (finally venturing outside the Apatow camp), playing Nicki and Sam's mother, a self-help harpy whose idea of home schooling involves prayers based on "The Secret" and beauty tips from Angelina Jolie.
Coppola, the daughter of master
director Francis Ford Coppola, is a filmmaker whose previous work has been strictly hit-or-miss for me. Yet the director's contemplative visual style, built around elegance and repetition, seems wholly appropriate for "The Bling Ring," consciously mirroring the superficiality of her subjects.
FR Productions
There's a downside, however, to this delicate approach. The script, also written by Coppola, never actively casts judgment on its characters, refusing to examine them in a critical or even satirical light. After a promising first hour, the film settles into a visually dazzling
but ultimately monotonous series of rinse-and-repeat robberies: sneaking over fences, raiding warehouse-sized shoe closets, lounging around Hilton's vacant V.I.P. room (the heiress allowed Coppola the use of her Beverly Hills mansion to recreate the burglaries she barely noticed) and repeating brand names in hushed, reverent tones. For the majority of its run time, though, "The Bling Ring" is exactly what it should be: an exuberant exorcism of the valley girl id.
Edited by Megan Hinman