The Bling Ring: 5 Major Problems With Coppola's Misguided Fable

Bling RingI didn't particularly enjoy Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring. I found it misguided, confused and a little too insistent for its own good, and the central message of the film was lost entirely, despite veiled aspirations to make some judgement at various points throughout the film. The film is riddled with problems, from top to bottom, and though there is some perverse pleasure in watching this band of grotesques, as one would enjoy the vaguely entertaining disgust of a sideshow, the overall Oh, and Emma Watson is not one of the problems. She is something of a revelation, despite the slight problems with her accent early on, and she quickly becomes the most interesting character thanks to the openly comical way she is presented by the end. Plus, she is absolutely gorgeous, and suits the air-headed dolly girl model of the character, while retaining some venom behind those pretty eyes. She will come out of it well, and indeed others in the young cast will find themselves being shooed through a lot more open doors, but that doesn't mean the film was a success, by any means. And here are the five problems that throw it most off the rails...

5. The Achingly Hip Modernity

Facebook Because of the nature of the story, and how the thieves were tracked, thanks to their frivolous behaviour and tendency to show off on their social media accounts, Sofia Coppola has integrated some artistic decisions to reflect how much of a part those communities played in the story. The integration decision chosen was superimposing images taken from the characters' Facebook pages, showing their frankly idiotic tendency to pose with all of the swag they'd just stolen from their celebrity "victims," as well as doing that infuriating posing that kids today do, that even they will look back on with disdain in about three minutes. And that's the problem - the film will look outdated and ridiculous by the time it hits cinemas, because of the speed of digital evolution, and the kind of people it's aimed at will sneer in that distinctly annoying way they do whenever something is even slightly off the pulse.
Contributor
Contributor

WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.