A Flashy Headliner
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades
Rich California kids break into movie stars’ homes. Kids get arrested.
That’s the plot of Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring” in a nutshell.
The question is whether Coppola’s flashy cinema verité style adequately masks the film’s lack of depth. Not much story here, it’s almost like a series of visual news headlines: Bored teens burglarize Lindsay Lohan’s home, invade Paris Hilton’s home, take bling, try it on, flaunt it, sell it, party on, get caught on surveillance tapes, roll over on each other, don’t really learn a lesson. That’s it except for the watching.
The audience is left to see the irony, a teen jailed for burglarizing Lindsay Lohan’s house winds up on the same cell block as the troubled star who’s been arrested for shoplifting.
Emma Watson gives the standout performance as Nicki, one of the Bling Ring who sees this as her fifteen minutes of fame, shushing her mother during a Vanity Fair interview, promoting her website, touting how much she’s grown from the experience. Not.
Sophia Coppola has become a filmmaker to rival other members of her famous family (Francis Ford, Roman, Nic Cage, et al.). Yet as a storyteller she has a few things to learn from her dad, the director of the “Godfather” trilogy, “The Conversation,” and “Apocalypse Now.” Even so, she definitely shows that brilliant cinematic DNA.
Like her characters in “The Bling Ring,” Sofia has broken into your movie theater, stolen a few minutes of your time, and flashes her spoils on TV talk shows. But like the celebs in this movie, you don’t seem to mind.
srhoades@aol.com
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