Based upon the Vanity Fair article "The Suspects Wore Louboutins" by Nancy Jo Sales
Written and Directed by Sofia Coppola
***1/2 (three and a half stars)
"Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce
Too many bowls of that green, no lucky charms
The maids come around too much
Parents ain't around enough
Too many joy rides in daddy's jaguar
Too many white lies and white lines
Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends
Super rich kids with nothing but fake friends"
-Frank Ocean ("Super Rich Kids")
Ms. Coppola, you have done it again!
"The Bling Ring," the fifth film from Writer/Director Sofia Coppola is a film that aligns itself snuggly with all of her previous films yet this time, she is finding ways to branch outwards. The culture and pitfalls of celebrity is Coppola's primary subject of choice and over the course of her four earlier films, she continuously and surprisingly found fresh, inventive, and elegant ways to explore themes of memory and perception (1999's "The Virgin Suicides"), loneliness, isolation and soulful connections (2003's "Lost In Translation"), how the culture eats and discards the young (2006's "Marie Antoinette"), and crippling states of ennui (2010's "Somewhere"). Within all of those earlier films, Coppola was essentially giving us transmissions from inside the fishbowl. With "The Bling Ring," Coppola is just this far outside of said fishbowl, thus giving us a sharp satire and striking cultural commentary about our relationship, attraction and repulsion to the omnipresence of fame driven media in the 21st century. As always, Coppola presentation may be an acquired taste for many viewers due to her somewhat detached aesthetics. But, I think that if you do give this film a chance, you may be surprised at how much you come away with.
Based upon real events, "The Bling Ring" introduces us to Marc (a sympathetic Israel Broussard), a lonely teen expelled from one school and now entering a new one without any friends or connections to assist with his re-adjustment. Soon, he crosses paths with Rebecca (an excellent Katie Chang), they begin to build a friendship and shortly, he is introduced to her circle of club hopping, high partying high school friends which include the tart tongued, gangsta rap listening trip of Chloe (Claire Julien), Sam (Taissa Farmiga) and Nicki (a wonderfully vapid Emma Watson).
One evening, and seemingly just for the hell of it, Marc and Rebecca locate the address of Paris Hilton on the internet. More internet searches and Facebook feeds indicate that Hilton will be away from her Hollywood Hills home for the evening and the twosome then decide to break into her home for a look-see. The invasion into the world of the uber-rich and famous quickly becomes theft as Rebecca begins to pillage Hilton's home. This one visit soon becomes eight, all of their friends quickly become involved and one theft of a purse and jewelry soon becomes full on raids of the homes of Orlando Bloom, Megan Fox, Audrina Partridge, Rachel Bilson and Lindsay Lohan, thus making the teen thieves media celebrities themselves.
Where Coppola's previous film "Somewhere," was an exercise in extreme minimalism, "The Bling Ring" is almost adrenalized--at least by Coppola's standards. The film is quickly paced, trimmed of all superfluous material and yet, it is packed full with Coppola's signature artistic touches of employing a "less is more" aesthetic and also including her impeccable taste in music choices. As I have previously stated, "The Bling Ring" works beautifully of a piece with all of her past work but it can also be seen as an updated companion piece to both Woody Allen's underrated and brutally wicked satire "Celebrity" (1998) and David Fincher's outstanding cultural critique "The Social Network" (2010).
Coppola gives a world that is sadly recognizable to anyone who chooses to watch this film. A world where individuals with no discernible talent are made famous for no other reason than because they are famous and impressionable people, on the outside looking in, are desperately trying to attain their 15 minutes regardless of any sense of consequences. We can see it all in front of us just by clicking on the TV with the plethora of horrific, exploitative television shows like "Teen Mom," "Dance Moms" and those so-called "Real Housewives" of wherever that have littered our programming to the point where the line between reality and fiction has become so blurred that scripted programs feel more real than the shows that are supposedly representations of reality. The brilliance of what Sofia Coppola does with this material is to not stand upon a soapbox or design her material with any sense of pre-judgement either for or against her characters. Much like Writer/Director Richard Linklater beautifully achieved with "Before Midnight," Coppola just presents us with the material in a matter-of-fact way and allows her audience to flexibility to make any connections they wish.
Foe me, I was just struck with how this collection of teenagers felt to me to be extensions of the nihilistic literary worlds of Bret Easton Ellils' emotionally detached kids, where all of them are fatally jaded, everything is meaningless yet they all keep searching for the very next high, which never really arrives. Adding to this emptiness is indeed the internet culture, predominantly seen in the film via Facebook postings, where these kids have taken the point to document their entire lives in a virtual universe but they have so real connections to each other in the real world, other than for empty usage. Taking on the cartoon world of gangsta hip-hop and how it has been embraced by white culture, Coppola critiques aspects of that assimilation in how her female characters walk around addressing each other as "bitch" and "slut" in a coldly cavalier fashion. Words and their meanings are meaningless, and the costumes they parade around in serve no real function than to just be a costume to be discarded for another costume.
Yes, there is indeed a perverse thrill to be had stepping into worlds that are created to keep us common-folk, no matter how much money we may have, completely out of bounds. It is a feeling that Coppola captures very slyly and the excitement in creeping into the closets of the uber-rich was palpable--but not for the characters. Coppola uses all of the theft sequences to have us think and examine our current status as a instant gratification culture and sense of intense entitlement for things and statuses that have not been earned. For all of the houses the kids break into and for everything they steal, each moment contained no sense of connection or gratification (just watch how they simply toss around the high class swag as if it was trash), other than potentially being a stepping stone to greater potential recognition. It is a sad, soulless state of affairs for our collective humanity, Coppola seems to be saying, but she has wisely not made a soulless film.
With "The Bling Ring," Sofia Coppola has also made a wise film about friendship and peer pressure, which actually makes this film a close cousin to Writer/Director/Author Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks Of Being A Wallflower" (2012). Both films essentially have the same set-up of an isolated, troubled kid desperately trying to find lasting, important relationships with his peer group. But depending on the group of individuals that isolated, troubled kid happens to fall in with, the consequences can go in a variety of directions. Which friends will truly accept and love you and which ones will coldly use you to achieve their own ends? With "The Bling Ring," the central character of Marc unfortunately finds the latter grouping, and that unfortunate union gives the film its soul.
Again, the crux of the film lies within the relationship between Marc and Rebecca. Rebecca is obviously using Marc as her accomplice and foil, stringing him along with smiles and perceived kindness but in reality, she is a viper as she cruelly chides him whenever he is itching to exit one of the Hollywood Hills homes without being caught before she is ready to leave herself. And yet, I don't believe that Marc is so naive to not know that she is indeed using him. I think he is a kid who needs a connection so badly that any connection would do. So, he plays the odds just so he is not left completely alone in the world. I think that he is possibly the one character in the film whose actions are not necessarily fame driven but acceptance driven for a real world relationship.
But then, as an added texture, there is also the question of whether he is in love with Rebecca or not mainly because I think that Marc just may be a closeted homosexual, given his penchant for a pair of pink high heeled shoes he has coveted for his very own and wears in private. it was a feeling I had as he seemed to be tentatively squeaking out signals to his new friends here and there, testing the friendship waters so to speak. But, since everyone around him is so gigantically self-absorbed, no one would ever take the bait. Israel Broussard, who bears a striking resemblance to Jeremy and Jason London, gives a completely winning, gentle performance in a film full of duplicitous, empty characters and you just want to whisk him away from all of the madness before the walls inevitably close in on him.
Emma Watson is clearly having the time of her life playing the complete opposite of the virtuous Hermione Granger from the "Harry Potter" series in a wickedly funny performance that should serve as a sign to filmmakers that they may want to snap her up for their future projects as quickly as possible as she is really showing signs of how skilled of an actress she has become.
Yet again, the star of this show is Sofia Coppola, who once again has proven that she is indeed the real deal with a cinematic vision all her own and the immense skills to bring those visions to vibrant life. She, as far as I am concerned, deserves greater recognition as a filmmaking force to be reckoned with as her time in the sun certainly did not have to diminish after the waves of appreciation for her "Lost In Translation" subsided. Sofia Coppola injects cinema with a passion and art that is a necessity these days. Movies truly need an artist like her and while I do understand that her style may to be everyone's cup of tea, I strongly urge you to take a step outside of your own movie going comfort zones and head out to "The Bling Ring."
What a sad state movies would exist in if her voice was not a part of the conversation.
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