THE BLING RING
Director : Sofia Coppola
Year : 2013
Genre : Comedy
Rating : **
Directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, Leslie Mann, Israel Broussard and Katie Chang, 'The Bling Ring' tells the incredible true story of a group of teenagers who stole almost 3 million dollars worth of possessions from some of the biggest names in Hollywood in 2008. These stars included Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom and Megan Fox and for nearly 2 years, this infamous group of adolescents robbed 50 houses over the course of 2 years. Unfortunately, the movie about these criminals is not half as interesting as it sounds and director Sofia Coppola clearly cares more about the crass commercialisation shown on screen rather than the obvious effect that the heinous crimes would have had on those affected. With no stand out performances, a sleazy and grungy camera style and a poorly written screenplay, 'The Bling Ring' is a rather obnoxious and repetitive piece of work that fails to become anything more than a vehicle for Emma Watson and an advertisement for the various jewellers and fashion designers mentioned throughout the film.
The film introduces us to a character named Marc, a socially awkward teenager who starts his first day at a new high school. Immediately alienated from the rest of his classes, he wanders in and out of lessons with no one to interact with. That is until he begins talking to Rebecca, a forthright and funloving girl who invites Marc to a party at her fathers mansion. While at the celebrations, Marc wanders the streets with Rebecca, who shows her penchant for robbing from peoples cars. Stealing nearly $400 in one night, she is determined to make more money and soon Marc and Rebecca begin searching the internet for the addresses of multi millionaire celebrities. Thanks to Google Earth, they find a way into their houses and upon entering, just help themselves to whatever they want. As their social group expands, more teenagers end up stealing from the rich and soon, they collect a fortune in handbags, dresses, jewellery and makeup. However, it is not long before the news catches them in the act and soon a hunt begins to find the members of the elusive 'Bling Ring'.
I have always had a funny viewpoint on director Sofia Coppola. Some of her films I really like, such as 'Lost In Translation' and others I really despise, such as 'Marie Antoinette'. Unfortunately, 'The Bling Ring' falls face first into the second category. It is not so much the directing style used that I have taken against so much, but it is the decisions made during production that I find so loathsome and completely vomit inducing. First of all, a movie about 5 avaricious, fame hungry brats who ruined the lives of a number of celebrities purely for profit should not make us (or have the impression of) empathise with the central characters. They are criminals and completely deserves the punishments they were given and if you ask me, they weren't hard enough. But instead, Coppola gives us a portrait of a half a dozen youngsters who are fun loving, sympathetic idols who are just doing what every other girl on the planet would do. Or at least, that's what the movie thinks. To me, 'The Bling Ring' is one of the most sickingly commercialist films I have ever seen and by the first or second robbery I wanted the police to drag each of the twerps kicking and screaming into jail. We are shown a number of the crimes throughout the film and these become extremely repetitive, with endless of scenes of girls going all jelly eyed at the sight of a shiny piece of metal or a shoe made from the skin of an endangered animal.
The cast is nothing special to behold and there are no performances that stand out to me in any way at all. The newcomers are completely ineffectual and Leslie Mann completely overplays her role as a religious, power hungry mother. However, by far the worst performance is given by Emma Watson. I am not exactly sure why I hated her part so much but to me, it is the perfect example of an actress giving her fans (her mostly male fans) what they want. There are numerous scenes of her pouting to the camera, running around in her underwear and in a completely ridiculous scene, pole dancing in Paris Hilton's disco room. For an actress of Watson's talent, she should be absolutely ashamed of this blatant pandering to her male based audience. Oh well, I am sure that screenshots of her provocatively spinning on a vertical piece of metal in a dimly lit room will be plastered all over the internet by tomorrow so all the middle aged perverts who ogle her can masturbate themselves to sleep every night. Her part is badly written, badly acted and wildly exaggerated to the point of parody. Emma Watson is a very good actress and can do fantastic work. She proved this in a large majority of the 'Harry Potter' films, 'My Week With Marilyn' and the brilliant 'The Perks Of Being A Wallflower' and I hope that she will be given a role in the future that will really showcase her acting talents. But believe me, 'The Bling Ring' is not that film.
The tagline to the film reads 'LIVING THE DREAM. ONE HEIST AT A TIME'. Is the dream taking a large amount of drugs, driving illegally when smacked out on crack cocaine and owning a supernatural amount of jewellery? I'm not so sure it is and I know many people that would completely contradict this supposed ideology. But apparently, Sofia Coppola believes that this is the dream that every teenage girl has and as long as they own stuff, who needs a career or life aspirations? This to me is the rotten heart of 'The Bling Ring'. We are given numerous scenes of teenagers losing control over their emotions just because they have seen a handbag made from a reptile or a pair of sunglasses made by an unpronounceable Dutch production company. At any point do we see these girls interacting with their families or looking for a future? No, all we see is 6 spoiled rich teenagers who think that they are better than everyone else. Watching the scenes of them going through the cupboards of numerous celebrities like kids in a sweet shop were completely sickening and completely destroy the idea that these people are criminals and deserve to be punished. We spend too much time with them dolling themselves up and turning into their idols and to me, the heart of the story is how they accomplished their crimes, not what they did inside the houses. I don't care about Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan or Megan Fox. I certainly don't care what possessions they have bought with the money they made from making their crass and horrible movies.
Everything about 'The Bling Ring' is wrong. The message, the ideologies and opinions are poisonously misguided and to me, Sofia Coppola has just cemented her place as one of the most talentless directors working in Hollywood. I don't care that this film opened under the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes film festival and I certainly don't care that it has made $9 million dollars at the box office. To me, 'The Bling Ring' is everything that is wrong with Hollywood. It is a world ruled by money, possessions and avarice and as long as you have these in your life, who needs anything else?
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