"The Bling Ring" (2013), Celebrity Obsession, and Cultural and Personal Vacuity

After watching the young burglars in The Bling Ring rob the houses of celebrities, party, drink and do drugs, and attempt to emulate the very people they steal from, writer-director Sophia Coppola does something bold. She denies us the opportunity to see their trial. The film shows the courtroom doors close only to cut to the same set of doors re-opening and the young criminals exiting. We hear their sentences read by the judge in a voiceover set to their slow motion departure. They are punished but we are unable to be given pleasure in watching them be punished.

The narrative choice matters because the film really isn't an indictment of the vapidness and emptiness of the lifestyle of its characters. It's a critique of the larger culture that breeds this kind of behavior in the first place. The young celebrity obsessed teens rob celebrities' homes in order to appropriate some of the celebrity's status and wealth. And yet, it never brings them any more contentment; they can't stop stealing from the homes, and using their gains in order to party and look like the celebrities they steal from.

When they're caught, they never seem to be upset with their actions, but rather upset with being unable to get away with their crimes. Yet the brilliant irony of the film is that they end up getting exactly what they want by being arrested. They are turned into celebrities in their own right, chased after by the paparazzi and news reporters and thrown into the scrutinizing public spotlight they always yearned for. Sure, we're infuriated and baffled by their behavior, but we're also infatuated by it. Why else would anyone desire to be like Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan? We create a strange dichotomy: criticizing them for their excessive and naughty behavior, but encouraging it through tabloids and fashion mags.

While too much of The Bling Ring reads as obvious, and even a bit on the nose, that might just be, in part, due to its protagonists being loud and brash. They yell out for attention, much like their flashy jewelry and outfits. The character of Marc (Israel Broussard) is where Coppola attempts to make it most explicit how this lifestyle isn't just empty but rather the people living it are aware, on some level, of its emptiness -- even if Coppola doesn't seem to go far enough in explaining or rounding out the character (But then again, with the help of the late cinematographer Harris Savides, Coppola's style is highly impersonal and detached). Marc gets caught up in the lifestyle because he finally, for once in his life, has the attention he's never felt he had, or deserved, in the form of his friendship with the other teens  (Interestingly enough, Marc is the only male member of the Bling Ring outfit, and the only one who seem to show genuine guilt). These characters are crying out for attention, any attention at all, and at any cost.

Perhaps this is best seen in the character of Nicki (a scene-stealing performance by Emma Watson). Watson's performance is delightfully hammy, but somehow it never reads as too over-the-top. It rings true for this kind of fame fixated persona. Of all the characters, she most closely looks and acts like the vacuous celebs she imitates. She's a total ditz, but she's also, surprisingly and insidiously intelligent, utilizing her good looks and angelic baby face to get away with bad behavior. And the film, ends on her, looking out at us, while on a talk show, and building up an actual celebrity status from her time as a criminal. It's a darkly cynical end-note which implicates us as just as responsible for the Bling Ring's behavior as they are.