The Bling Ring (2013)

The Bling Ring is based on a true story where a group of reckless upperclass teens discretely burglarized several A-list celebrity homes and used the bling to live out their A-list fantasy. This is one of those movies where the trailer looked really exciting but I just get the feeling it's going to be a humdrum, by the numbers movie. On the contrary, the Bling Ring actually turned out to be quite unique and thoroughly enjoyable.

The awesome thing about it is that, despite being your typical universal POV film, it manages to feel a hell of a lot like a found footage movie. The style is stark and subdued, and the best few scenes play out more like voyeur's camera than like a regular movie: just very natural and personal little moments. The music and the voiceovers are done in a way that seems a little less like a typical hollywood production and a little more like something the kids would be putting together themselves -- highly reminiscent of found footage films such as Diary of the Dead and The Bay, where the protagonists are self-editing a makeshift documentary while telling their story. As a result of the borrowed found footage feel, the suspense was heightened and the viewer gets to share in more of the taboo fun, which puts this one a cut above most of the other "rowdy partying teen" movies.

In other teen crime films like, say, The East, the protagonists are meant to be sympathetic. But in The Bling Ring the characters are never portrayed positively, and as a result I found them much easier to root for. They seemed more like actual people, as opposed to props in the filmmaker's agenda. I'm sure some would accuse Sofia Coppola of trying to harang a message into The Bling Ring about the celebrity obsession of generation Y, but I don't think that's true. The protagonists themselves are the only ones who are waxing philosophic, and we're obviously never supposed to take them seriously.

The entire film feels like the characters' own pet project. I don't think the point is that this is some tragic downfall (like the primary POV seems to be implying), Sofia Coppola's point is that these kids are trying to aggrandize themselves, and that's what comes through in the film. Despite being a good movie precisely for NOT being as message-oriented as you'd expect a movie like this to be, it's actually quite clever at gettings its point across: it's not a moral or social message, but a very mild character study.

And I didn't even recognize Hermione, so Emma Watson must have been doing a darn good job of acting her part.