It’s fitting that both The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers both came out this year, and were released by newcomer studio A24. While Spring Breakers was a more experimental film than The Bling Ring, both offer up colorful stylish commentaries on modern society and how misplaced and immoral their values can be. In both cases we see just what happens when these young personalities are free to do as they please. In both cases the results are disastrous. The only difference is that The Bling Ring is based on true events, which makes the results that much more preposterous.
The Bling Ring tells the true tale of a group of privileged California teenagers who began to sporadically rob celebrities houses. The teenagers saw opportunities to rob the houses after they noticed that celebrities left their houses suspect to theft when they left to go attend lavish premieres or parties.
The film is Sofia Coppola’s baby. She directed, wrote, and produced it. After reading a Vanity Fair piece on the suspects titled The Suspects Wore Louboutins, Coppola saw an opportunity a opportunity to comment on today’s culture. This is very apparent in the film which misses no opportunity of bringing these characters to the lowest possible level and showing just how misplaced their values are.
It all begins when Marc (Israel Broussard), the newest student at a high school meets Rebecca Ahn (Katie Chang). They both share an appreciation of celebrity culture and fashion, which becomes their bonding point. Rebecca introduces Marc to her friends who all are just as superficial as Rebecca. This includes the very confident, Nicki Moore (Emma Watson), her sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga), and Chloe Tayner (Claire Julien). Marc is just as in love with the celebrity culture, but he is the only (somewhat) level headed one out of the bunch. He is soon enamored by Rebecca and just can’t resist her or the trouble that comes with her. As they get closer, she begins showing that she has an obsession with not only celebrities, but stealing whatever she can get her hands on. Soon she puts 2+2 together and gets the bright idea to start robbing celebrities.
This is a true story, but it’s so absurd to the point that it does sound like the possible plot of a movie. That’s exactly why Coppola made the film. It sounds so utterly ridiculous and insane that a bunch of teens who were already wealthy found the need to start robbing houses of the rich and famous. Coppola captures this by showcasing them in the lowest denominator possible. We see these guys bragging about their “accomplishments” at parties and through social media. Coppola is in on the times and demonstrates the things that youth culture finds important.
Coppola’s strength in The Bling Ring is the stylized aesthetic that is almost necessary in this world. We are delivered a candy colored overload that helps remind us of the fakeness of this culture and it makes everything seem like a dream. A highlight for me was a scene where the group are out partying and celebrating in a club after a successful heist. The music is blaring, the shot of the group is long and slowed down, and you’re completely stuck in this moment, almost forced to enjoy it just as much as these kids did. Another brilliant scene is during one of the actual robberies where we watch it all go down from afar. We don’t get too close, and we don’t hear anything. Yet, it puts you in the heist more closely than any other scene. It’s one of the most memorable heist scenes that you will see all year. There’s a surreal quality to the film that when used right, is money.
The problem with the film is a lousy script that is as bland as these characters. I know that we aren’t dealing with all-star personalities here, but the characters felt undeveloped and forgettable, which feels like a total missed opportunity considering who they were dealing with. The film never reaches up above these characters, and it just gives you an empty feeling. A lot of the film is style over substance, and when it’s good it’s often brilliant and you can’t help but get lost in this world. But with that said, it can be a completely too much of an overkill at times and when Coppala misses, she misses pretty hard.
Make no mistake, this is Emma Watson’s movie. She nails the role of Nicki, who is based off of Alexis Neiers, the most colorful personality out of the real life gang. She was great in last year’s gem The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, and she continues to separate herself from Hermione Granger in this role. You will be rolling your eyes and laughing way too hard over her character, to the point where you almost have to remind yourself that she is acting. Relative newcomer Israel Broussard gives a pretty solid performance as Marc, showing a conflicted side of the only character with a conscious in the whole group. Katie Chang is decent enough as Rebecca and Claire Julien and Taissa Farmiga as the other members of the group. There’s simply not enough Leslie Mann who plays the mother of Nicki & Sam, and delivers some pretty hilarious scenes between herself and Watson.
The Bling Ring achieves its goal of making its comments of these worthless group of individuals. It’s almost ironic when you think about it since we’re only bringing more fame and attention to them. But it’s a comment worth noting because it’s something that our culture is practically built around. As a film it’s an entertaining one, but it does have it’s own problems of superficiality that don’t allow it to reach the true potential that we know Coppola is very much possible of obtaining (Lost In Translation, The Virgin Suicides). It is an easier pill to swallow than Spring Breakers, sure, but the latter is the only one people will be talking about come December.
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