The early two thousands were a very crazy time for celebrities and drama. TMZ was on the rise and hunting down celebrities. Names such as Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were always in the news for their wild partying or DUI’s. TMZ ultimately kept giving out private information of the celebrities, such as their whereabouts at the time. Giving a particular group of teens tips that the victims were not home. This gave them the idea to trespass and break into their properties to take whatever they wanted.
The Bling Ring is a movie directed by Sofia Coppola. She has also directed movies such as Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides. Many people have enjoyed her previous films, which is why it is so jarring to watch her movie The Bling Ring, which was based off of a Vanity Fair article “The Suspects Wore Louboutins.” It started out when Nick Prugo met Rachel Lee at Indian Hills High School. Indian Hills High School was considered an alternative school for kids who were expelled from their previous schools, kids with learning disabilities, or kids who could not get into any other school. It was known as the school where all of the troubled kids go. Nick transferred to Indian Hills and met a popular girl, Rachel Lee. He was infatuated with her, they clicked immediately when they found out they both liked fashion. Over time their friendship grew stronger and they started to check cars together. Later on it escalated to researching what kind of jewelry and other expensive items their victims owned, so they know what to look for when they eventually enter. They brought their different friends to participate in the burglaries. Their names are Diana Tamayo, Alexis Neiers (who was about to star in her own reality TV show on E! called Pretty Wild), Courtney Ames, Tess Taylor (she never got charged). The teens also used google earth to look around their victims properties to find an easy way in and to map it out when they got there. Some of their victims included names such as Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Megan Fox/Brian Austin Green, Orlando Bloom, and Audrina Patridge.
The Bling Ring’s characters have their names changed in the film, but I will be addressing them with their real names to avoid any confusion.
The Bling Ring’s introduction shot is the teens climbing over a gate and breaking into a property with extremely heavy music in the background. As soon as they get into the house the music starts abruptly and is extremely loud. It reminds me of when you are watching something on TV and then a commercial comes on and is way louder than the program you are watching. The choice in music could have been better because when it first starts to play there is no warning whatsoever making the first scene in the movie extremely jarring. Immediately giving the viewer a bad impression of the movie.
I cannot even get started on the acting in this movie as well. Emma Watson is one of the main stars and she gave the most lackluster performance in this movie. You can clearly hear her English accent coming through when she needed to have an American accent for the role. There were also many different cases of just bad writing in general. Lines such as “C’mon I wanna rob” in the most sarcastic voice anyone could ever say it in. It was such an awkward scene to watch.
The movie is supposed to be set in the early two-thousands but all the characters wear twenty-tens styled clothes instead of all the layered y2k outfits. They gave the characters chevron printed clothes which does not give off the energy that they are kids who are obsessed with style and celebrities. Giving the characters the correct fashion style for the time period would have given the movie a more realistic feeling. Rachel was known as a person who knew what looked good and what did not. She would have most definitely criticized the choices of using chevron in any of the outfits.
There are many cases in the movie where they tell you what happens instead of cutting to a scene where they show what they are telling. This is a very basic case of “show don’t tell”. When Alexis and Tess get introduced to the other characters Courtney goes on a little monologue explaining their back story right in front of them. That scene felt very awkward and just strangely placed. Instead of that scene, they should have cut it out and replaced it with a scene of their back story.
This movie can be quite enjoyable when you are not viewing it from a critical point of view. I think that they portrayed the real events pretty well, only with a couple differences from the original sources. I know this movie will not be receiving any academy awards anytime soon. I would love to see it have a reboot and have a different director to see how well the movie can turn out.
