The Bling Ring (2011)
Review of The Bling Ring (2013), directed by Sofia Coppola
As much as a big fan of Sofia Coppola that I am, there have been two very specific movies of hers that have been off-limits to me. Off-limits as in I never managed to watch them nor did I feel a burning desire to watch them.
The first one is Lost in Translation, which is scandalous considering people LOVE that movie. Sofia Coppola wouldn’t really be the Sofia Coppola we know today without Lost in Translation--or, well, that’s what we like to think. Many forget who her dad is. Besides that, The Bling Ring is the other movie I’ve left untouched in the kingdom of Sofia Coppola.
Coppola in recent years has had a tendency to stick to bigger movies that are based off of real events, which is what we see in this movie. The only big actor in the main cast was Emma Watson, who plays the girl seemingly has been raised in a strange white-girl-esque religious cult that her crimes ruins her squeaky image for. But not really because they believed in her the entire time—how heartwarming.
Before I ramble too much, let’s dive into this review.
Content
As mentioned before, The Bling Ring is based on a real series of events that happened in the Hollywood area. All of the characters have been renamed in this film, most likely to avoid a major lawsuit, and some have been blended together, but the event that this particular movie is based upon is a crime spree that a bunch of Los Angeles teenagers committed.
Basically they stalked celebrities to the point of finding out where every single one of them lived, said, “Who’d leave their door unlocked?” and decided Paris Hilton would. So Marc and Rebecca, two newly found best friends at an alternative school, break into Paris Hilton’s house and steal her stuff. Which starts an entire avalanche of events, giving these kids a boost of adrenaline at the thought of stealing from celebrities.
That’s the gist of the entire movie. We follow these kids as they pick out their victims, who tend to be Hollywood starlets (with the exception of Orlando Bloom, but does he really count in this era of time—he’s dating Victoria Secret model Miranda Kerr at the times of the thefts) whose fashion they really, really like. Naturally, because they cannot afford Valentino and Chanel and because they like said celebrity, why not steal it?
A great plan, except for the fact that surveillance cameras exist and these teens are teens. Teen brainpower, most of the time, can only get you so far in life.
Missing from this movie is the insertion of Sofia Coppola’s classic motto of including rock music inserted into the narrative. And, because the year is 2008/2009 in the world of the film, we get Kanye West instead. I never thought I’d hear the song “All of the Lights” inside of a Sofia Coppola film, but here we are. Despite this, we get some really good shots throughout. One of my favorites was during a burglary, Coppola must’ve had a camera positioned on a hill above the house.
In classic modern architecture style, this house is cube-shaped and manages to almost be completely made of glass.
It is reminiscent of an anthill to me, one where we, as viewers, are looking down at the crime as they move from room to room, and are almost completely able to see everything because of the glass. This also adds this effect that anyone’s watching and that these kids are not safe doing what they’re doing. If we are able to watch above a hill, anyone else, a drone, or a camera could be watching them as well.
I think personally what’s really interesting about this film is that it’s almost completely told from the perspective of the kids committing the crime. Rarely do we get to see news footage of a devastated celebrity who has just had their home ransacked and stolen from, nor do we see anything about these kids from the teachers or parents really. We start getting glimpses of their personal lives towards the end; for example, Rebecca’s mother is actually a stern-looking lawyer that dresses in clean-cut grey suits.
At the end of the day…this kind of comes across as justifying their story. We know they’re all in an alternative school, but we get the impression too that these kids thought this was a joke. There was much more to this, as hinted by the selling of certain clothes and the one guy involved getting arrested for having drugs, and it wasn’t just a silly thing that teens do.
This was full on stalking people via the Internet to find out where they live, then taking their possessions out of greed. It’s scary how this is dramatized because they’re celebrities and not ordinary people, yet this happens every day.
Overall Thoughts
I think this is an interesting film to watch because of the event surrounding this film, the creation of the Bling Ring. Is the film spectacular? No, not in my opinion. But it makes me wonder about the obsession of fame and the notion of privacy in a world that’s becoming increasingly tracked—if this was done in 2021, would we bat an eyelash and try to be more private? What even is fame and why are these teenagers seeking it? But if they were born later, and this movie occurred in 2021, would they instead be making Tik Toks about their lives?
