At the start of the film we are told that the film is based on an article in Vanity Fair magazine and that it is based on real events.After watching the trailer, I was excited by both the premise of the story and the lady behind the lens - Sofia Cappola. But after watching The Bling Ring, I was firstly disappointing by the handling of the story by the director and I was equally awestruck by the utter dumbness of the celebrities who were affected and I did not feel any symapthy for their stupidity.
The Bling Ring inspired by the case of a gang of Los Angeles teenagers who broke
into the homes of some of the city's celebrities and stole a total of $3
million in jewellery, cash and clothes. It wasn't difficult. Doors were
found unlocked and security cameras were easily avoided - until they
got really careless.Our guide to the working of the gang is Marc (Israel Broussard). He
meets the others when he and his parents move into a
suburb in the San Fernando Valley full of big, boxy houses with
immaculate lawns and well-placed families for whom status matters quite a
lot.He's taken up by Rebecca (Katie
Chang), a self-possessed Korean-American girl whose obsessions match his
own. And from that point things accelerate rapidly. They're soon
consulting the websites that keep tabs on the whereabouts of their
favourite celebrities and whenever they're out of town, they break into
their houses.Before long, the gang has expanded to include Rebecca's
friends, dedicated party girls Chloe (Claire Julien), Nicki (Emma
Watson) and her adopted sister, Sam (Taissa Farmiga). All of them are
delighted at the prospect of launching a new career in grand larceny,
and Marc, the only one who expresses any qualms about the possibility of
getting caught, is persuaded to calm down and get on with it.
There are some major flaws in the movie.The main problem with the film is the lack of accountability.Coppola seems to send out a message like,
"they have so much stuff, it's hard to feel sorry for them." Yes, but a
victim's wealth doesn't normally figure in deciding the amount of
culpability.When a victim is as rich and stupid as Paris Hilton (she actually
left her spare key under the mat), does that mean she deserves what she
gets? This film comes to no real conclusion, just leaves you wondering
what exactly the parents were doing while all this was going on. For another, there's the involvement of actual celebrities in a movie that's mainly about celebrity-envy. Paris Hilton and Kirsten Dunst have non-speaking cameos as themselves; more importantly, Hilton's real house is used throughout the film.Coppola neither makes a case for her characters nor places them inside
of some kind of moral or critical framework; they simply pass through
the frame, listing off name brands and staring at their phones and posting their celebrated acts on Facebook.It seems she is unsure of her own feelings about this and thus makes a shallow ambiguous film for each to reach his own conclusion.
The other thing that turns what might have been an underdog heist story into a glamorous mess is the casting of Emma Watson
as one of the bling ring leaders. This is very
distracting, and Watson's well-toned figure is given excess airtime,
leaving the lesser – and potentially more interesting – members of the
gang with insufficient space for their motives to be heard.
This film could have been so much more if the director was more sure of her motives and feelings about the incidents.It seems that she had detached herself from the characters just like her characters in Lost In Translation. After an hour into the movie you would feel that you have been watching the same things over and over again. We would have loved to see the back stories of these characters and a little bit more pace.Instead, we get a shallow movie about narcissistic characters and dumb celebrities.
WORTHY MENTIONS
Watch out for the long take during the robbery of Audrina Patridge's house. It reflects the sense of detachment we feel as the viewer.
This is the first movie starring Emma Watson not based on a book.
MY VERDICT
**1/2 - Wait for the DVD
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