Tell me a story

Imagine this: you’re house-sitting for a friend of a friend, someone you’re familiar with but don’t really know. This person is gone for a week and you have the keys to her house and you’re watering her plants and feeding her dog and leaving a light on so it looks like someone is home. The question is do you at some point go through her things? Do you peer inside her dresser drawers? Gander through that shoebox sitting all the way on the back shelf of her closet? Rummage through the trunk labeled “Personal Effects” in the basement? Browse her photo albums? There’s no denying that it’s thrilling about getting a peek inside someone else’s private life, particularly when they’re unaware you’re doing it. You get to learn about them in a way they would probably never have revealed themselves, and you can better see how much they are like or unlike you.

It’s easy to understand why the kids in The Bling Ring would want to go through celebrities’ houses. Who doesn’t want to see how multi-millionaires live? I’d sure love to get a peek at Robert Downey Jr.’s  home, but this sentence is as far as I would ever take it. The bling ring took things a lot farther, breaking into multiple celebrity homes and stealing over $3 million in goods. That I do not understand.

Sam, Marc, Nicki, Rebecca and Chloe

The Bling Ring is Marc (played by Israel Broussard), Rebecca (played by Katie Chang), Nicki (played by Emma Watson), Sam (played by Taissa Farmiga), and Chloe (played by Claire Julien). Marc has just moved into town and started a new school. He doesn’t know anyone until Rebecca introduces herself. Right away he fits in easily with her friends, who spend their time hanging out at the beach and going to clubs and taking pictures of themselves. That’s why Rebecca feels comfortable enough to take him with her for a little thievery. See, some nights Rebecca will wander her neighborhood, checking car doors to see if they’re unlocked. When she comes upon one, she takes whatever valuable things she finds in there. Surprised by this behavior, but unopposed to it, Marc joins her, and it all seems like harmless fun until one night when Marc reads that Paris Hilton is out of town, and they discover that a non-Google search easily reveals her address. Do they dare go to her house? Could they get in? Marc is hesitant, but still unopposed, and a short while later they are at Paris’s front door.

It’s not long before they find other celebrities to rob, and then it’s even less long (less longer?) before the other girls are joining in on the burglaries. And for some reason it still just seems like harmless fun to all of them. They’re amassing a great collection of expensive clothing and jewelry, they’re experiencing the thrill of doing something naughty, and to them it almost feels like they’re part of the group of people they’re robbing. Add to that the fact that they’re not paying any price for their actions, and you can kind of see, from their perspectives, why they wouldn’t stop. They had to be thinking there would never be any repercussions, which is what ultimately led to their capture.

If you followed this true story when it was happening or if you’ve seen some of the trailers, then their arrest is no surprise. It’s also revealed at the start of the movie, as the narrative is interspersed with post-trial interviews of the kids. These snippets give you an idea of how their actions and resultant punishments have affected them as people, and where Marc seems to have learned something from the experience, Nicki sees it as nothing more than something that brought her national attention. You’ll laugh at her ignorance, but you’ll also be disgusted.

Emma Watson gives the most fun performance of the movie, channeling as much Kardashian as possible. Perhaps it’s so much fun because we still think of her as sweet, precocious, and very British Hermione. The marketing for this movie is definitely highlighting her presence, which is odd when you realize she’s actually more of a side character. The story is about Marc and the most important relationship in the film is between him and Rebecca. You could take Nicki completely out of the film and that relationship would be unaffected.

It almost feels like—and I’m just speculating here—that Nicki was given more screen time and more focus based solely on the fact that Emma Watson is the biggest name in the film. I reckon her name is probably more recognizable than Sofia Coppola’s. Yet while this tactic may help with getting butts in seats, it makes for a movie that feels unbalanced and unfocused. It would have benefitted the story if we’d spent more time with Rebecca. We know Nicki is the way she is because she’s been home-schooled by a mother (played wonderfully by Leslie Mann) who’d rather teach her kids about vision boards than arithmetic. Her moral compass is a little skewed, thus making burglary no big deal. But I never quite understood what motivated Rebecca, especially given that her parents are well off. Was it just entitlement? Why does she feel no qualms about stealing?

Michael Bay recently directed a film based on a true story about people that did horrible things to make a buck. It was called Pain & Gain, and it did a much better job of explaining the criminals’ motivations, which is what I’m looking for if I’m watching a movie from the point of view of the criminals. We partially get that in The Bling Ring, but its indecision to choose its central characters only obstructs understanding. It doesn’t help that the repetitive nature of the film—theft and party and theft and party—made you feel like you were watching a series of dramatic reenactments than a movie with a full story. Still, it has an interesting premise, one I knew very little about beforehand and one I enjoyed experiencing as the movie progressed. For those reasons, I’d still recommend the movie. Wait for DVD though.

 My Rating

The Bling Ring
Writer/Director: Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Lost in Translation, Somewhere)