4. The Identity Crisis
So, what is The Bling Ring? Is is supposed to be the cautionary tale Coppola and crew have been careful to market it as? Or is it all a hollow facade - the opportunity to make a particular type of film based on an intriguing story in the NY Times without ever engaging with the moral issues it inspires? Well, it's hard to tell, because it is one and both at various points throughout. Coppola occasionally hints that she is presenting her characters for re-judgement after their court-cases, but she then replaces any slight moralising with a frustrating mythologising of the Ring. They are presented as perverse do-gooders, robbing comical public figures like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, who have more stuff than they could ever keep track of, and though they are eventually brought to task about it, the way Coppola stages the end of the film, and their punishments, feels like a throw-away, and not the sufficient resolution we all wanted. Some will say Coppola is being gently comic here, reserving judgement in order that we come to our own conclusions, but it's simply not the case. We are invited to share the euphoric responses to the Ring's crimes, and to ache for their lifestyle, even as it is getting them in trouble, and there is plainly no room for moral clucking and finger-wagging. In short, Coppola should have been clearer on her direction here - whether she wanted to criticise or celebrate, because doing both undermines how the film feels, and one suspects that audience members of a certain age will see this as another opportunity to celebrate that vapid YOLO culture.