Ryan McNeil
Years ago, I remember seeing a story on TV about Lindsay Lohan and how out of control her shopping habit had become. As she acted less and less, she started living in smaller and smaller places, but her wardrobe never stopped growing. To us mere mortals, she appeared to be a hoarder with a platinum AmEx.
Unfortunately, to a whole circle of TMZ watching fame-hungry teenagers, she is a role model.
THE BLING RING is based on real events in Los Angeles a few years ago. The film is the story of Marc Hall (Israel Broussard), a new kid in town who doesn’t know anybody at his new high school. He is quickly taken under the wing of Rebecca (Katie Chang), who is mostly interested in him because she’s outgoing and he’s cute in a quiet way. Eventually, Rebecca introduces Marc to her friends Nicki, Sam and Chloe (Emma Watson, Taissa Farmiga, and Claire Julien).
One night after a party,Rebecca pulls Marc down a residential road and starts trying the handles on car doors. Any car that’s unlocked, she looks for a purse. Soon enough, they’ve pulled a few purses, a few hundred dollars, and are riding a criminal high. Days later, Rebecca says that she wants more. She wants to hit a house whose owners are away and break in. Marc suggests an acquaintance from school, and the plan is put into motion. With that success under their belts, the pair soon start hitting the house of the rich and famous, making their way into the homes of Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, and Megan Fox.
You’d think such illicit activities would be something they’d keep to themselves. Nope. This pair of fame and label-whores can’t help but tell Nicki, Sam, and Chloe about their misdeeds, and pretty soon these girls who are equally as shallow want in on the action. Pretty soon the group is breaking into Hollywood mansions to pad their own closets, to hang out, and to curb boredom. They are ashamed of nothing; they are wearing the stolen goods to clubs, living large, hawking their loot, and acting like rock stars.
It’s easy to see a film like THE BLING RING and come away feeling vacant. The film is, after all, ninety minutes of self-indulgent materialism, with occasional forays into fame obsession. Its characters are unapologetic, uninteresting, and generally unlikable. Spending time and hard-earned money to watch their unending want can indeed be an unappealing idea.
However, the film has value, and the value is in understanding what sort of society we are becoming, and how that is affecting the next generation.
Odds are you’ve met teenagers like those portrayed in THE BLING RING. They are probably fans of a “reality star”, they are likely obsessed with posting their every waking move online, and definitely want to be famous. Ask them what they want to be famous for, and odds you’ll likely get a shrug. If they know what they want to be famous for, odds are they aren’t working on it. If they are working on it, odds are they are trying to “get discovered” rather than honing a talent. That’s what famous is in 2013; it’s not talent, it’s branding. It’s being able to slap your name on perfumes and pop songs, and build upon tabloid fodder.
This sort of fame feeds off the uninteresting, and appeals to the talentless. Those two traits are exactly what THE BLING RING wants to carve up, and for us to recognize.
For these characters, the sad thing is the way their vices never satisfy them. The material goods only beget more material goods, the stealing leads to more stealing, the partying, drinking and drugs become more of a life than a lifestyle. Worst of all, their need for attention has them chronicling their every self-indulgent moment online. When people toss around the idea of “gateway drugs”, these sorts of actions are what they have in mind. Rebecca’s heist of purses from unlocked cars should give her enough of a rush to last for a good while…but being the “gateway drug” that it is, it soon leads to breaking & entering.
THE BLING RING comes with some biting sarcasm at its characters expense. For starters, it subtly jabs at how inarticulate they are despite obviously being children of privilege. They seldom have anything of intelligence to say about anything, and as they flip through the closets of their style icons, one loses track of the amount of times they declare “Oh My God”. It’s all they can say, maybe all they know how to say. They almost approach a point where it can mean different things depending on the inflection, but they never quite get that articulate.
What’s more, the group sift through the personal effects of these rich and famous people, and note on several occasions that they “have so much stuff”. So what do they do? They help themselves. Where as a rational person might look into Paris Hilton’s closet and ask “How many pairs of pink Louboutins does one need?”, these wannabe-stylistas see a way to build their own collection just as big. Soon they too “have so much stuff”. The difference is that they didn’t work for it, and their stuff only leads to a want for more stuff.
Like SPRING BREAKERS earlier this year, THE BLING RING is a fun house mirror reflecting the worst of the next generation. In this case, the story is based on truth, but it is no less indicative of a youth culture that seems out of touch with truth and consequences. The optimist in me hopes that one or two petty teenagers will watch it and get a splash of cold water tossed on their fame-obsessed-materialism.
The pessimist in me thinks they’ll come away talking about how hot Hermione looked in Prada.
I’m really looking forward to seeing this movie, but I think it’s mostly because I really like Sophia Coppola’s film and this is a news story that I was a bit too young for at the time it was happening. I remember hearing something vague about Paris Hilton being robbed but other than that, it completely went over my head.
Word to the wise: if you can’t get to the theatre to watch THE BLING RING in the near future, do NOT try to bide your time by watching “Pretty Wild”, the reality TV show of one of the girls who got caught, on Netflix. You will regret it big time and lose brain cells along the way.
When I said “too young” what I really meant was “didn’t care”.
Heh, yeah – I was gonna say something about the “too young” comment.
I was really getting antsy with Coppola as a director, but I really have to hand it to her with BLING RING. Some have said that she “doesn’t have much to say” about these kids, but I think she actually does the right thing by pulling back a bit and letting their shallowness and amorality speak for itself.
There’s also a shot in the film that is one of the best we’ll see all year.
I am in love with Sofia Coppola, and up to now she’d never done wrong by me. I went into this expecting to love it; I’m well accustomed to Coppola’s ways of telling a story & have never understood people who think that “nothing ever happens” in her films. That being said, this one disappointed me greatly. And only, I think, because it was overlong for what she had to say. I agree with you about the message being bang on, and the performances were very good, but this was the first time I became genuinely tired of the Coppola repetition. One “trip to Paris” was plenty for me. The best bits were moments when the characters showed their true sociopathic nature – bragging about being in a cell next to Lohan, asking what Celebrity X said about her on the news about the burglaries, etc. – but outside of those moments, something was missing that could’ve filled in the gaps and made me not feel like it was so. bloody. long. (I haven’t gotten to see “Spring Breakers” yet, but I want to! And next time Sofia comes a-callin’, I will be front of the line as always; this was just a down-blip for me.)
Funny thing: As I was heading out to see this, Paola Ragone was telling me how much you disliked it.
I liked that almost all of the B&E’s were staged the same, since it echoed the way these kids take part in mass-consumption. One great dress isn’t enough…nor is one night of indulgence at a club. It needs to be followed by another, and another, until eventually what was once decadence is now commodity. That was the point I thought the film was driving at – that what might seem repetitious to you and I is just one long bender for these kids.
Weird how a ninety minute movie can feel long, eh? Though for me it sailed by.
More below…
I love this film. I think it’s her most entertaining film to date and it certainly shows the dark aspects of celebrity culture and a group of kids who want to be part of that. Sofia is getting better at what she does.
The strange thing is that this film now makes me mildly curious about SOMEWHERE. I’m fearful though. Something tells me it will lean harder on her filmmaking that I don’t like (MARIE ANTOINETTE), than the filmmaking that I do (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES).
I didn’t feel vacant after watching this, but I felt depressed. This is literally what our generation has molded into, and Coppola was smart enough to showcase it with such a strangely fascinating story. I saw this twice, because I had mixed emotions about it the first time, but I kept dwelling on it days after and had to see it again.
I also find myself never apologizing for selfies. Good review!
I love when a film sticks in your craw like that! As much as I love the brainless fun ones, the ones that I didn’t like 100% but can’t forget about are often the ones that feel like a better use of time.
Heh, I don’t think you need to apologize for *all* your selfies. maybe just take a long look at your facebook/instagram feed and get a good idea of just how many you take. I wager we can all take something like 25% less…
@Ryan – For whatever it’s worth (which may not be much here!), I LOVED “Somewhere.” It has so little dialogue, and yet there’s so much to it. The main complaint with that one from people at the time of its release was, again, that “nothing happened!!!” But I heard the same criticism about “Lost in Translation,” one of my all-time favourite films, full stop, so I watched “Somewhere” anyway and it was just…bliss. I remember it being one of the few movies that I thought, at the end, “I am so sad that I’ll never get to see this for the first time again.” But the distinction you’re drawing between “Marie Antoinette” Sofia and “The Virgin Suicides” Sofia makes me less certain that you’d feel as much love for “Somewhere” as I did. I’d heartily encourage you to at least give it a try, though, because I never knew Stephen Dorff could impress me so much, and Elle Fanning is just wonderful. The soundtrack is fantastic, too.
…and we’re back!
I do like Elle Fanning quite a bit thanks to GINGER & ROSA and SUPER 8, so perhaps I’ll give it a go to see more of her. In thinking about Coppola’s five films, I find myself wondering if I might like her work even more if she didn’t shoot her own scripts. I fell like trying to interpret someone else’s words might get her outside of herself a bit more.
You’ve convinced me though; I’ll give SOMEWHERE a shot and at least wade through the first act or so. Hopefully it turns up on Netflix or the like.
PS – Happy to see you commenting around here again!
Ha ha – yeah, Paola would’ve seen my deflated status update on FB after I got home. I don’t know; maybe a second viewing will make me warm to it. There were a lot of things I really liked about the film as a whole, so I’m not writing it off completely. I mean, it’s FAR from a “bad” movie by any stretch. Maybe my Sofia Fangirl glasses were on a bit too tight going in. 🙂 And you (and fellow commenters here) make valid points about how the repetition is meant to drive home the faux-glamourous reality tv/carbon copy/same ol’, same ol’ mentality of these kids. I wish I could articulate what I felt was missing in there…
It would be interesting to see what Coppola could do with someone else’s completely original material. I love the stories she tells, but I agree that seeing her skills applied to someone else’s vision would be compelling.
Last I checked (which admittedly was about a month ago), “Somewhere” was indeed on Netflix. If nothing else, it’s worth it for the hilariously bad strippers and the weird meta-scene with Benicio del Toro at the Chateau!
Ah, did you see “Ginger & Rosa” at TIFF? Were we at the same Gala? Good lord, Christina Hendricks looked beautiful on the red carpet. Her dress! I coveted it. As for not commenting for eons, I went without a laptop for quite a while and have only recently managed to get all of my old bookmarks re-established on my tablet, so with no thanks to FB’s lousy feed I rarely got to see posts from you there. Now I’m just coming to the source again!
Well if SOMEWHERE is on Netflix, I don’t really have any excuse, now do I?
I didn’t catch GINGER & ROSA at TIFF (but I did get a Hendricks fix at the live-read of AMERICAN BEAUTY on opening night). I only saw GINGER for the first time back in April…if you’re interested I’ve done both a review and a podcast on it:
http://www.thematinee.ca/gingerandrosa/
http://www.thematinee.ca/matineecast82/
Glad to hear your technical difficulties are behind ya – welcome back to The Matinee.
Guess what I watched last night?
Sub question: Guess what I didn’t care for last night?
I agree this is a film that reflects upon some of the worst tenancies of our society, our obsession with the rich and famous being the most direct critique. I didn’t like the way it presented it, though. I felt the film was a bit condescending with its messaging and tried too much to make it clear that the film didn’t condone the behavior of these characters. I think we get that without the clunky interviews and cheap sarcasm.
I could have done without the reviews too – especially since I think the documentary framing of film and TV has played itself out. That said, I did like that the documentary bumpers underlined just how disconnected these people are. Think about what Marc says has become of his online presence after his arrest.
Not perfect, but certainly good.
I agree with you, James.
And damnit, Ryan! I was so hoping you’d find something redeeming in it. 🙁
I’m often a fan of patience in art, but there’s a fine line between the long form and over-indulgence. That opening driving scene is a litmus test, and the second scene of Johnny watching the strippers with disinterest just mocks me.
That said, I was quite smitten every time Fanning was on the screen. Just as I guessed, she brought a great deal of life to the film. Unfortunately, she was just overmatched by Coppola wanting to show us so much of so much.
Sorry H – I tried.