Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Katie Chang and Claire Julien (A24)Sofia Coppola’s new movie opens with a title sequence that sets glossy candy colored footage of titular baubles to the glossy candy-apple chimes of Sleigh Bells. Then the lights go out. We see faceless perps running up and away from a celebrity mansion under cover of night. The camera watches from a bird’s eye view just above an entryway. We first see it in rich earthy tones of evening; then in the green fluorescent haze of a surveillance camera. This set up introduces a smart visual strategy: the story about to unfold does so not through a tabloid eye but through the cool uninflected lens of security vision. There is a fatal downside to this well-considered aesthetic: how long can you watch surveillance footage before you fall asleep?
The Bling Ring is based on the true story of a group of teenagers who broke into celebrity homes in Los Angeles. The teens followed the lives of Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, and other vapid idols of the early 2000s. When an outlet like TMZ announced that Paris or Audrina were out of town, the gang swooped on their houses, getting in through an unlocked patio door, or in the case of Hilton, using a key left under the doormat.
Apparently, none of the ring’s victims had alarm systems. Hilton, who has a cameo in the film, served as technical advisor, and even allowed Coppola to film in her house to recreate the crimes. The heiress reportedly broke into tears after watching footage of the ransacking, but does not mind that audiences laughed at shots of celebrity self-love: stairways decked with framed magazine covers, ornate chairs backed with throw pillows bearing her alien Barbie likeness. Hilton’s closets, more spacious than some New York apartments, were so filled with stuff that the teens pulled off several break-ins before their victim even realized anything was missing.
Emma Watson (A24) If these crimes seem like thin fodder for a movie, the personalities behind them, as portrayed by Hermione Granger Emma Watson and a cast of young unknowns, are no meatier. Hilton’s lack of self-awareness theoretically plays off these young people’s acute self-awareness, seeking status through jewels and lavish clothing. Cinematographer Harris Savides, who left the production before passing away, lends some of the cool affectless tone that he brought to Gus Van Sant’s Columbine drama Elephant. That excellent film captured vapid criminals at an adolescent time of incompletely formed beauty.
Coppola catches her charges around the same age but does not get the same effect. She tries. A black and white sequence where the ring’s sole male participant, Marc (Israel Broussard), mugs for his webcam scene recalls Rineke Dijkstra’s videos of adolescents dancing, and I think Coppola was reaching for a celebratory tone of youth.
She doesn’t get there, but then that hasn’t been Coppola’s specialty. From her debut feature, The Virgin Suicides, Coppola has been best at portraying a dreamlike alienation of the young, particularly the privileged young. Even her boldly anachronistic Marie Antoinette offered the tragic monarch as a spoiled young punk throwing parties to Siouxsee and the Banshees. Such updated decadence worked, but Coppola faltered with her last movie, Somewhere, a study of alienation that simply grew boring.
This is The Bling Ring’s worst crime. Maybe there’s no reason to expect a celebrity heist movie to work. But you would not expect it to be so dull.
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The Bling Ring
With Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson
Written and directed by Sofia Coppola
Rated R for teen drug and alcohol use, for language including some brief sexual references, and graphic Louboutins.
Running time 90 minutes
Opens today at AMC Georgetown, Regal Gallery Place, Landmark Bethesda Row, Regal Majestic, AMC Courthouse, AMC Hoffman, Angelika Mosaic and other area multiplexes.
