The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring (Sofia Coppola, 2013)

Based on true events that occurred in California, many homes of stars were perpetrated by a group of young adults that were stealing personal effects, clothes, shoes, jewelries, watches, etc.

Staring Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Taissa Farmiga, Claire Julien, Emma Watson, and Leslie Mann, Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring is a nice effort with a brilliant cast that fits well into its director’s filmography without being her peak.

As for her other films, Coppola decided to let the images and actions do the talking for her narrative. Scenes only filled with loud music and contemporary tunes that were topping back at the time of the robberies are linking together the lives of these teenagers who want so desperately to be the famous people they were robbing. Wearing their clothes, perfumes, and visiting those homes several times. At first it’s funny and seem more like a daring game that they were doing to each other. But at some point it became their obsession. It was not the money they were looking for but to feel getting close to their role models that celebrity built for them. It represents a sad need that teenagers and young adults forge themself to believe what it is to be happy, successful, and someone. To them, it represents owning expensive clothes and not having to pay for what they have. This generation was born into wealth and they had nothing real to dream about when you don’t need anything. It also represents how empty their lives really is and how having your mouth full also has down sides.

Those are many themes that Coppola carries in most of her films. However, even if the story is based on real events, it sometimes felt flat because of the lack of a deeper analysis of the young thieves’ motivations. It might be Coppola’s lesser film and even if it’s a nice effort let’s just hope that her next projects will be more successful and that she’ll get back for stronger films like her Lost in Translation or her Marie Antoinette. In fact, with The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola was working with the subject of teenagers and many common themes of her filmography. It is probably one of the reasons why I was mostly unimpressed with it. She managed to have handled those subjects with more passion and in a more elaborated way before. Her skills at telling this kind of story should have been perfected with time and experience. Still, I am looking forward to her next project untitled for the moment that will be about fairy tales.