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Filmmaker Sofia Coppola has taken a few hits over the years for fixating on materially comfortable, yet emotionally vacuous protagonists. The Bling Ring, an adaption of a Vanity Fair exposé, doesn't flip the script, but there's a new-found buoyancy to her tale of lost kids in Los Angeles. When Marc (Israel Broussard, sweet and sympathetic), a middle-class student with "too many absences," enters a high school for wayward youth, everyone rebuffs him until he meets Rebecca (charismatic newcomer Katie Chang), who invites him to hang out, possibly because she pegs him as a willing accomplice. They proceed to bond over a
Filmmaker Sofia Coppola has taken a few hits over the years for fixating on materially comfortable, yet emotionally vacuous protagonists. The Bling Ring, an adaption of a Vanity Fair exposé, doesn't flip the script, but there's a new-found buoyancy to her tale of lost kids in Los Angeles. When Marc (Israel Broussard, sweet and sympathetic), a middle-class student with "too many absences," enters a high school for wayward youth, everyone rebuffs him until he meets Rebecca (charismatic newcomer Katie Chang), who invites him to hang out, possibly because she pegs him as a willing accomplice. They proceed to bond over a fascination with fashion, tabloid stars, and entering unlocked cars to pilfer cash and cocaine. In short order, they're driving around Hollywood and singing along to songs by style-obsessed musicians, like M.I.A. When that thrill subsides, Becky suggests bigger game: the homes of careless celebrities, like Paris Hilton (who appears as herself). Their "shopping" excursions are so successful that they invite Chloe (Claire Julien), Sam (Taissa Farmiga), and Nicki (Emma Watson, miles away from Hermione Granger) to join them. In Coppola's conception, the teens have no goals other than to live like their materialistic idols, and by posting pictures to the Internet, they secured the fame they sought--but not without consequences. As a framing device, Coppola uses a journalist's interviews with the perpetrators, an unnecessary move, though it does allow Leslie Mann, who plays a clueless guardian, to do some of the most richly comedic work of her career. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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Manufacturer: Lions Gate
Release date: 17 September 2013
EAN: 0031398177456 UPC: 031398177456
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