Somebody is going to have to explain to me why I should be outraged that Paris Hilton has been deprived of possessions she collected for doing, essentially, nothing. The Bling Ring is a film without true heroes or victims; it just has vain a-moral non-celebrities thieving from vain a-moral “celebrities.” This is Sofia Coppola‘s message to us all — does the method of notoriety really matter? And after watching a film where a bunch of punks break into the mansions of talent-suspect National Enquirer regulars, I feel about the same for them as I feel about Audrina Patridge and Rachel Bilson, which is to say nothing whatsoever.
Marc (Israel Broussard) is your average new school loser. He has a problem “showing up,” and pays the price — the bad school. There’s a bad school? In El Lay? How do you tell the difference? Marc endures almost an entire full day of peer abuse when Becca (Katie Chang) collects him as one would a stamp or a cold. Within an hour, they’re smoking pot on the beach. Within four, they’re breaking into parked cars. Marc is voice conscience here; he occasionally makes some sort of sniveling “this is wrong” or “we should leave now” while continuing to commit felonies willy-nilly. It isn’t long before the pair work up to home invasion. The unique style of this Bonnie and Clyde is their choice of victim: only B-list celebrities. These particular targets are surprisingly light on security and, better yet, they tend to announce their schedules in public: “Paris will be at the unveiling of a new lipo clinic in Santiago next week!”
One scene in particular is a marvelous stand-out for camera work — simply a single long shot aimed at Audriana’s 
home in the hills (seriously, who is Audriana Patridge and why the f*** does she have the kind of name that star-struck teens revere?). By this time, Becca and Marc have gotten their patter down flat. Pool patio door slides open, lights on, grab the goods, lights off, door closed. Another note of significance here is these guys are more into sidling up to stardom than theft. They are far likelier to take dresses and shoes than liquid assets. Far as we know, Paris Hilton still doesn’t know her house was violated.
Eventually Hermione joins the ring, which is awesome because not only do we get to see Emma Watson play shallow American, we also get to see Leslie Mann take on the role of her shallow home-schoolin’ parent. Hey, wait a minute … If Hermione is home schooled, how does she know Becca? Aw, forget it.
You’re not gonna find here quite the same level of moral vacuum among these teens as, say, River’s Edge, but there is a fairly serious disconnect between right and wrong among these vain attention-seekers. Attention-seekers is kind; these guys have the same thirst for personal celebrity as terrorists and American Idol contestants. It’s pretty much this reason I have doubts about Miss Coppola’s work here — I see your point, tis a silly thing to be a nothing celebrity and a sillier thing to attain celebrity by robbing one, but that doesn’t really make me want to root for either party. Nor does it make shallow high school theft anything deeper than just that.
Kids who are otherwise whiny
Find selves drawn to everything shiny
Theft from celeb
Weaves tangled web
Say it ain’t so, Hermione
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Sofia Coppola
W: Sofia Coppola
Genre: The shameful values of our current civilization
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: “Did you read Kanye’s twitter?”
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Hank Hill
