The Bling Ring

Sofia Coppola is one cool cat. She’s attractive, sartorially elegant and best friends with Kim Gordon. Coppola has belied the cinematic royalty of her surname and forged an independent career built on her talent and auteur eye. She has become a director to be prized and respected, and I always look forward to her newest work. But The Bling Ring. Based on the gang of teenagers who were so bedazzled by their celebrity idols that they burgled their houses, Coppola prods a fictional magnifying glass into the lives of those juveniles. Young people in thrall to shallow public figures of the celebrity culture, is a timely subject to explore. Coppola’s keen eye for pertinent subject matter is to be commended but the execution, not so much. Her writing (as with all her films Coppola wrote and directed) is lacking a sentimental depth, an incisiveness that such a complex topic needs.

There’s no doubt that this is a rare misfire in an otherwise critically successful career. Naturally the focus is on the teenagers’ obsession with robbing the Hollywood homes of Paris Hilton, Miranda Kerr etc, but there are but there are so many thematic bases that Coppola touches on without ever really devoting sufficient time or space to fully develop. There is an unrequited romance at the centre of the group between Marc (Israel Broussard) and Rebecca (Katie Chang) that is never developed or resolved, merely hinted at; similarly the technology aspect of Facebook and the sharing culture of other social networking is fingered without ever really imparting much comment beyond acknowledging its presence in these people’s lives, though the significance of selfies is craftily accomplished and amusingly prominent.

The role Emma Watson plays is fascinating and problematic. There’s no doubt that she is the star of the cast, and likely to pull in a younger and more female audience for Coppola, yet plays neither of the two central roles. She is Nicki Moore a free floating rich girl who picks and chooses elements of bogus spirituality to counterbalance the voracity with which she engages in male flirtation. But there is too little background insight into her character for the amount of camera time she gets. To be blunt I suspect that the reason Moore is given as many lines as she has is because it is Emma Watson who is playing her. Simple as that.

Maybe those criticisms are a little harsh. There are a couple of dynamite shots: the bit in Megan Fox’s room where Sam (Taissa Farmiga) finds a gun and playfully points at an agitated Marc is brilliantly written, brilliantly acted and brilliantly directed. It’s an intense menacing piece of cinema that sits incongruous with the black humour everywhere else. And the music does, as ever on a Coppola movie, work excellently well. In the same way the My Bloody Valentine/Kevin Shields iridescence encapsulated the alien loneliness in Lost In Translation, so the reckless and feckless characters revel in the brash hip hop of M.I.A. and Azealia Banks, and Sleigh Bells’ raucous crunk.

The Bling Ring is not necessarily a bad film, it just doesn’t capture the ills of modern society as effectively as one feels Sofia Coppola could. Bones of contention arise out of frustration rather than scorn. There is a prevailing style and the celebrity guests appearances – Hilton, Kirsten Dunst, Audrina Patridge (must confess I had never heard of her before) – lend a veneer of authenticity. But the dialogue between the gang whilst in the process of the burglaries is so flighty and irritating, and the dangers of drugs and alcohol are so easily cast aside and meaningless. Yes I know that is the whole point of the movie, but it feels too contrived without the tenderness of narrative to delve beyond the aesthetic.