"What did Lindsay Say?"
Like a
bitchy little sister to Sorkin/Fincher's The
Social Network (2010) Sofia Coppola's movie shares similar thematic concerns
of friendship in the social media age and modern celebrity. The Bling Ring is based on the Vanity
Fair article 'The Suspects Wore Louboutins' by Nancy Jo Sales about a group of
High School kids who robbed a bunch of celebrities of goods worth over $3
million. The group would check Facebook and online gossip sites for information
about a particular celebrity to see if they were out of town, google the address, then find a way in without breaking and entering. They regularly
turned over Paris Hilton's fantastically kitsch mansion because the heiress
kept a key under the welcome mat. Given the comic mileage Coppola gets from
this amazingly furnished abode Hilton is either a great sport or still leaves
her key under the mat and the director snuck the cast and crew in while the
heiress was on one of her many holidays.
Shy and
neurotic Marc (Israel Broussard) is pleasantly surprised to be taken under the
wing of confident Rebecca (Katie Chang) on his first day at his new school. Rebecca
shares his interest in celebrity gossip sites and expensive clothes. She pays
for her outfits by stealing cash and valuables from parked cars. They graduate
to breaking into a school-friend's house then targeting the homes of celebrities.
Other kids get involved including Nicki (Emma Watson) whose upbringing on a
diet of adderall and her mother's new-age religion means she talks in the kind
of meaningless self-actualisation nonsense celebrities spout in interviews, and
Chloe (Claire Julien) who wears her DUI like a badge of honour. At first the raids are low-key activities, but they soon gravitate to house parties which they are silly enough to boast about to impress their peers.
Latterly
the invasion of a reality TV star's glass-panelled home is observed coolly from
a distance like a scene from Michael Mann's crime thriller Heat (1995) before Coppola cuts to a security team watching over
them. CCTV footage of this break-in ends up on the news turning them into media
stars. Coppola's aversion to moralising means the story is seen from the point
of view of the kids. It's why for most of the film their behaviour seems fun.
She's not condoning their activities but expecting the audience to work out
they are a bunch of spoilt brats. Yet she is too kind a director not to
feel something for them. A recurring theme in her movies is people who seem to
have everything but still find themselves drifting aimlessly through life. They
might be comfortable but there is some spark missing. Behind these kids
obsession with material goods and being seen in the right places there is a
basic human need to belong.
