Starring: Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Emma Watson
Tearaway teen Marc (Broussard) is a new student at a school
for similarly troubled students where he becomes friends with Rebecca (Chang)
who pushes him further into a life of partying and robbery. Sharing an
obsession with celebrity, status and possessions, Marc, Katie and few other
teens start breaking into the Hollywood homes of celebrities and stealing
valuable property. Acts of criminality that soon give them the fame that they
crave.
The Bling Ring is a product of a modern culture that it both
feeds on and satirises mercilessly. The film makes use of trendy celeb cameos,
gossip news groups such as TMZ get referenced and even director Sofia Coppola
whilst also claiming serious cinematic and artistic credibility such as being daughter
of the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, one of the film’s producers, she is also
the partial inheritor of her father’s experimental independent film company
American Zoetrope (a company which also kick-started the careers of the likes
of John Milius and George Lucas) whilst also having a foot in the world of
fashion and a distinctly ‘trendy’ and punkish approach to directing, for
example Marie Antoinette (2006). In amongst this indulgence of the modern celeb
culture is a razor sharp sense of satire. Our main characters aren’t presented
as being the sharpest knives in drawer and only succeed by having their victims
being even less aware of the world than the thieves. The film is best served as
an acerbic comedy than when it tries to go for drama and whilst there’s never
anything which breaks the grounds of believability, it’s still remarkable that
it’s a true story based on the news article, They Suspect Wore Louboutins
(which is a much better title). Snarky and smart, The Bling Ring is, for the
most part, a strong insight into modern pop-culture.
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