“Super rich kids with nothin’ but fake friends”
If the The Bling Ring taught me one thing it’s that you should never, ever raise your kid in Southern California. Like, don’t even think about it, because your innocent son or daughter will eventually fall into the spoiled crowd of teenagers who want to rob Hollywood celebrities of all their glorious bling. Meaning: they will never experience proper schooling and in turn will grow up to be awful human beings. OK maybe they won’t really, but The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola’s latest film, tells the true story of a circle of six Los Angeles high schoolers as described above led by their main bling bitch Rebecca (Katie Chang) who just can’t get enough of that Hollywood life (smoking cigarettes and reading US Magazine).
It all starts out pretty innocent: Rebecca’s mom goes out of town and she invites the cute new boy at school Marc (Israel Broussard) over to smoke bowls and talk about their future plans to move to New York City because they both adore fashion. And well, frankly they’re just so sick of the LA scene. When the two decide to leave the house and go out, Rebecca starts checking for unlocked car doors parked outside to score some extra cash. Marc, shocked at first, grows more fantasized with Rebecca and her, um, “badassery”; so begins their little scheme to break into a bunch of A-list celebrities mansions every weekend.
The Bling Ring click (a nickname actually given to the group of kids by newscasters), including the infamous Nicki (played by Emma Watson) who appears on that awful TV show Pretty Wild, soon joins the bandwagon after they hear of Marc and Rebecca’s awesome night at Paris Hilton’s house (they figured out the A-lister booked it to Vegas for the weekend. Thanks, Google.)
The robbing didn’t seem to even be the main motive for wanting to break and enter into these houses; it was the group’s obsession with wanting so desperately to be a part of this desirous glam lifestyle. Rebecca was really the only one ballsy enough to take anything, making it seem effortless, as the rest eventually thought it OK to do the same.
Sequenced to a pretty undeniably awesome soundtrack including two MIA tracks (“Sunshine” and “Bad Girls”) with a mix of upbeat electronic music such as Azealia Banks’ dance-worthy “212” track, The Bling Ring paints an unfortunate picture of how this increasing celeb-obsessed fad can actually spiral out of control—and it’s all really quite silly (you will like, totes be cracking up at most of the dialogue!).
