The Bling Ring Rings True

By: Emily

Graphic by Emily

I don't know how I feel about the The Bling Ring. I mean, I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. An incredibly topical film about modern day youth, The Bling Ring tells the real life story of the Hollywood Hills burglaries that occurred a few years ago. It follows a group of high school teens as they rob the homes of famous celebrities, including Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, and Orlando Bloom to name a few. The film opens with new kid in school, Mark, making friends with a girl named Rebecca, who takes him to lavish parties where drugs, alcohol, and cell-phone selfies documenting their fun nights run rampant. It isn't long before he is swept up into this reckless lifestyle and starts stealing from houses with Rebecca and friends. 

The film shows break-in scene after break-in scene, all variably the same. They find some way into the home, model the most expensive of sequin dresses and sunglasses, steal the cash, and, without a second thought, shove it all into a Louis Vuitton handbag.

What was unbelievable to think about was that the film was based on real life. Obviously fabrications had been made, but the basic story was real. When these teens performed these acts of burglary, they were younger than me, and in a way, we can all see how the lifestyle they were trying to emulate is enticing. They always wore breath-takingly beautiful clothes and were filmed from an angle that made them look like models. In a way, they did not appear human. These people were elevated to a level of stardom, admiring the famous celebrities from the beginning.

Speaking of stars, no one stole the show quite like Emma Watson. Breaking away from her former good-girl image of Hermione Granger, Emma portrays Nicki, a fame-obsessed teen whose mother home schools her and her sisters (including adoptive best friend Sam) by teaching the views expressed in The Secret and distributing Adderrall at breakfast. While Nicki's vanity and false sense of self-worth can be annoying, director Sofia Coppola does a good job at making sure the characters are neither likeable nor unlikeable, but simply acting like all other teens around them, constantly applying lip gloss and checking themselves in the mirror.

Coppola wonderfully shows us the lives of these teenagers for what they simply are. She does not give us an agenda about how bad fame is or how modern youth are too reckless. While the theme of youth's obsession with fame, wealth, and celebrity are clear, it is not necessarily presented to us in a positive or negative light. Instead, she presents to us a beautifully shot reality show, as it appears the characters are almost always aware of the camera's subtle presence. In one particularly striking scene, the camera displays the entirety of Audrina Patridge's house as Rebecca and Marc rob it. The glass interior is very well-lit and we can see every move the young burglars make, as the camera slowly zooms in on their entrance and exit.

Throughout the entirety of the film I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for our antiheroes to finally meet their inevitable end, while also rooting for them to keep going. They live in a world so different from my own that I was so intrigued the whole way through. I've decided that enjoying the movie is a good thing. As long as I live vicariously through them, I'll continue to praise this film for all the beautiful glitz and glamour that it is.