Mubi Monday: The Bling Ring (2013)

Based on a Vanity Fair article ("The Suspects Wore Louboutins") by Nancy Jo Sales, The Bling Ring is a very unique crime film that also plays out very much like a time capsule showing certain types of shallow narcissists who have begun to multiply and thrive at the start of this century.

Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, and Claire Julien are the youngsters who discover an easy way to become just like so many of the celebrities they idolise. Rob them. When they see articles describing various people hosting, or heading to, parties that are out of town then they know that they can find out where those celebrities live, find a way to access the house, and help themselves to a few trinkets that probably won't even be missed. It's a great way of life until they start getting themselves noticed, ironically enough.

Directed by Sofia Coppola, The Bling Ring is a strange movie to enjoy. For starters, the cast are an annoying and vapid bunch who start to blend into one another. They're defined more by the clothing and accessories they covet than any actual personality, and that's really the whole point. The script is also a fairly shallow and pointless affair, again in line with the characters, and the direction sees Coppola spending most of the time just letting viewers hang out with the gang and being relentlessly worn down by their attitudes to possessions, fame, and success.

Everything that Coppola does here, and everything she asks of her cast, has a point. In that regard, the film succeeds. Unfortunately, the film spends 90 minutes making the same point, pretty much, over and over again. If you don't enjoy the first few scenes then you sure as hell aren't going to enjoy any of the rest of the movie.

Chang and Broussard are the leads, basically, but Watson, Farmiga, and Julien conribute just as much by being so similar in attitude and self-centred inability to even think of the bigger picture, or the repercussions that may befall them. Leslie Mann is the one adult to get some decent screentime, but she's not given that much to do, and there are some obvious celebrity cameos (either in acting roles or utilised in snippets of archive footage).

It can often be hard to enjoy a movie about crime, or criminals, if you suspect that it's somehow glorifying either the act or the people. The Bling Ring avoids that, despite showing the main characters usually being so absorbed in the opportunity to have a piece of an "unattainable" lifestyle that they're not being overtly malicious in any of their actions. That doesn't mean that viewers won't want to see them get their comeuppance, however, and there are a number of scenes in the final act that make it worth having endured some of the more annoying moments elsewhere.

I can see it being very easy to hate The Bling Ring. It's a frustrating experience. But it's also one worth your time, if only to fully understand the bizarre disconnect between reality and what can be seen on a computer/phone screen. A gaping divide always looking to be bridged by those looking up to online celebrities, promoters, and lifestyle gurus.

6/10

You can get some bling here.
Americans can get it here.