The Bling Ring

• I get what director Sofia Coppola is going for here – a detached looked at our obsession with celebrity. She accomplishes that.
• But she accomplishes it with a steady stream of repetition. See kids steal. See kids party. See kids steal. See them party. Coppola offers little in the way of suspense, plot or character development. And she keeps doing it for nearly 1.75 hours. This film is three or four times longer than it needs to be. Make it a thirty minute (or less) short, and I would call it uncomfortable but good. Make it a drawn out feature and I call it awful.
• The character’s names don’t matter, so I won’t make a point of saying them. Emma Watson is brilliant. So is the group’s leader, youngster Katie Chang. They were my favorite actors. Israel Broussard, as the ostensible protagonist (Marc) is very good as well. The rest of the actors are hit and miss. But that doesn’t much matter.
• When given this kind of repetitive plot, one-dimensional characters and too detached filmmaking, there is only so much an actor can do.
• I wonder how much more interesting this film would have been if Coppola had spent less time portraying break-in after break-in and more time showing us people in crisis.
• Final Grade: F-