The Bling Ring

The collective level of vapidity on display in the Bling Ring might (like totally) reach epic proportions.

Award-winning, insightful director, Sofia Coppola, has once again made a film that is highly successful in portraying fame and celebrity ... only this time she has turned the cameras onto those who obsess over and covet the fame and celebrity others have.

The Bling Ring is a character study/meditation of a group of people -- based on real life individuals in SoCal -- with NO character whatsoever. They are all beautiful bling on the outside with no inner core of morality. They are shells of a mass emptiness who worship others for merely having stuff they want ... or being on their TVs.

Coppola's story is based on real-life events of a group of five vacuous and insipid teenagers (one boy and four girls) who used the internet to track the whereabouts of their "celebrity" idols -- some were merely "reality stars" -- so that when the stars were out of town the five could play. The five would break into celeb houses and play with beautiful things that belonged to Paris Hilton, Rachel Bilson, Orlando Bloom, Audrina Patridge or ... their ultimate idol, Lindsay Lohan. They also ended up pocketing and stealing a lot of designer goods and merchandise (you know, like to wear and be cool with). They had fun and bragged about their shenanigans at parties and on social media all the while believing that they had done nothing wrong. One even believes this happened in order for her to become more charitable -- her comment on "karma" must be heard to be believed. Coppola wisely lifted this line word-for-word as it is tragic comic gold.

Emma Watson (Harry Potter, Perks of Being a Wallflower) is the most-recognizable face in the cast and she totally has the film's bestest lines! Watson is a genius comedienne ... who knew? Her line delivery and depiction of oblivious shame are perfect.

Coppola understands the world of fame and she has proved she also understand the world of those who dream of it. This isn't a movie in which characters learn life lessons and change ... this is a depiction of people who believe they do no wrong (like never ever). It is eye-opening because these people walk amongst us. The film is full of face palm, jaw drop and eye rolling moments. Like ... a lot. Totally.

For someone who knows a bit the true story on which it is based, the movie absolutely puts no new perspective on the facts themselves or the members of the Bling Ring. The script consists of an extremely redundant succession of burglaries, punctuated by a few excerpts from interviews which unsubtly try to explain the motivations of those teenagers. The plot lacks substance, there is almost no dramatic tension, and even the atmosphere, one of Coppola's work's most appealing aspect, has here trouble establishing itself and carrying away the viewer. The movie gets boring quite quickly and after an hour, it seems two have passed. In the end, it is not sure that this story deserved a feature.

The Bling Ring (2013)

First, what this is: a re-creation of a series of actual robberies by spoiled rich high school girls of spoiled adult celebrities in the L.A. area. They do the crimes, they get caught. This is evident from the beginning with some interviews after the fact.

Second, what this is: nothing more than the above. That's the big big problem here. This feature length movie re-creates and re-creates.

We see these indifferent, superficial girls in house after house (and in Paris Hilton's house a lot), trying on clothes and jewelry and taking home whatever they want by the purse-load. And we see all the parties between, party after party. Some with drugs, some without, all with music and dancing and utter detachment from consequences and culpability.

I guess that's the point, to make visible this world and make clear how really repulsive such prettified, well dressed, fashion imitation girls can be. This is the territory of Lauren Greenfield's photographic essay in the book "Fast Forward," but with a very specific focus on this group of half a dozen girls (and one boy who is sort of sucked in by his willingness to fawn and give attention).

There is zero attention to really what makes these girls tick. A very slim attempt is made at showing they have no true education, and no acculturation beyond fashion magazines. But really, what are these girls about? Where are there jealousies, their aspirations, their sex lives, their doubts? The movie is as superficial as the subject, and for Sofia Coppola that's a real shame and inexcusable, as if she just got lazy. Not that making a movie like this is easy, but someone somewhere should have said, hey, look, this amounts to nothing at all.

Where are there comparables beyond Greenfield (whose book has its own flaw of making glorious what she apparently means to critique)? Larry Clark's "Kids" is one place to consider (or his other films, which deal with youth more disturbingly). Or maybe the even more horrible "Murder in Greenwich" which dealt with the East Coast version of spoiled kids losing their bearings (and at least created a plot you could follow with some curiosity).

Coppola has gone this direction before in "The Virgin Suicides" and there she created a semblance of depth. Not this time. And the spoiled title character in "Marie Antoinette" gave her at least a fascinating subject, which she layered up in really compelling ways. And to be sure this isn't "Lost in Translation" (her masterpiece) in any manner. These are all written and directed by Coppola.

If you are the type of person who recoils at the Paris Hilton antics, skip this movie. This is a bunch of wannabe Hiltons and you don't feel sorry for anyone, perpetrator or victim. You just hope it ends fast.

The Bling Ring pace was fast simply because the kids went from one burglary to the next without much else in between. The acting, what there was of it, was okay. And Emily Watson's Valley Girl accent was spot on. But, there was hardly any character development.

How did these well-off privileged kids turn into obsessive narcissists? What are they doing now? There was no reaction shown from the victims.

The kids parents played minor roles in the film and they showed little reaction to the crimes their kids committed.

The film seemed a rush through the plot without bringing into play all the elements that one would expect in this real life caper plot. In the end it seemed more like an outline for a film rather than a completed film.

This is barely a story. The entire thing is just an endless repeat of the main "characters" robbing celebrities' houses and partying at the club afterwards, in fact it's as if one scene just got stuck and repeated over and over again until it created a black hole of bad dialogue, flashing lights, pulsing music and annoying teenage girls. It's all simply nauseating!

The few nice things that can be said about this "film", such as the great cinematography and the talented main actors who try their hardest to say the terrible lines they're given, aren't enough to save it.