After being expelled from Calabasas High School for excessive absences, Marc Hall (Israel Broussard), a quiet and friendless teenager with self-esteem problems, houseofbling transfers to Indian Hills High School. He is quickly befriended by Rebecca Ahn (Katie Chang) who is obsessed with celebrity culture, and the pair bond over their shared love of fashion. While at party at Rebecca’s Rebecca leads Marc to the street where she proceeds to check unlocked cars for valuables such as money and credit cards. When Marc mentions that a wealthy acquaintance of his is out of town for a prolonged period of time, ameriagency Rebecca suggests the pair go to his house. Marc is hesitant, but Rebecca is persuasive, and they enter the house, again stealing valuables, including a handbag which Rebecca’s idol, Lindsay Lohan, owns. Marc is then introduced to Rebecca’s home schooled friends at a night club, Nicki (Emma Watson) and her adopted sister Sam (Taissa Farmiga), as well as Chloe (Claire Julien), who attends Indian Hills with Marc and Rebecca. While reading magazines and online articles about celebrities and fashion, dramaflower Marc and Rebecca discover that Paris Hilton will be out of town hosting a party. Rebecca suggests they go there and, finding a key under the doormat, the pair enter Paris’s house. After flaunting a bracelet she stole from there to Nicki, Sam, and Chloe at the party Rebecca and Marc take them back to Paris’s house where they marvel at the excess of Hilton’s lifestyle, and decide to ‘go shopping’. After this the group frequently research when celebrities are going to be away from their houses in order for them to go and steal shoes, bags, dresses, cash, and jewelry and other valuables.

Broussard is exceptional as Marc. His character’s traumwimpern attempt to be accepted and be a part of the ‘in crowd’ is always incredibly relatable even when his desire to do so spirals out of control with each more daring burglary and his growing reliance of the excessive party lifestyle, including heavy drug abuse. Chang is great too as the unofficial ringleader of The Bling Ring Rebecca, with her carefree demeanor yet her icy pathological undertones, as she persuades Marc to do what she wants. She’s a character who could have been far more developed though, as her mere obsession with celebrity culture falls short as the sole motivation that drives her to undertake these robberies. The rest of the group also suffers from a lack of character development, although Farmiga has an enthralling scene as Sam involving the discovery of a gun whilst ransacking Megan Gale’s house. Watson pulls off the dumb rich girl routine well as Nicki, jrtvolleyballacademy but it is painful to watch her in this role, and the character description alone exemplifies that she’s little more than a stereotype character mostly used for the occasional laugh.

The film is written in such a way that it seems a fictional depiction of the facts, almost a documentary, which makes for very interesting viewing. There is no sign of bias or agendas here, adriancochieci just the telling of a narrative. The film does not ask for audience sympathy towards The Bling Ring, nor does it go out of its way to portray the group in a negative light, which is an extraordinary feat. However, it is also a lost opportunity, because a topic like this has the potential to evoke a host of emotional responses. You almost want the film to make a statement about youth obsession with celebrity culture and excessive living. Yet the film chooses not to, and it really detracts it of having any depth. The Bling Ring is sort of just there. The entire film is spent following this group as they rob one celebrity house after another (and these scenes eventually become overly excessive themselves as they continue to incessantly occur) until the inevitable end when they are caught and their crime spree comes to an end. thefantasytimes

Being a documentary-style film also brings its own problems to The Bling Ring. The bizarre choice is made to start the film with snippets from Marc’s Vanity Fair interview, which occurs after The Bling Ring has been caught and are awaiting prosecution. While it’s an intriguing first glimpse of his character, thanglongvnn the interview is spasmodically used as a voice-over in the film, and the effect is very jarring because of its seemingly random use. The film also splices in snapshots of the celebrities whose houses The Bling Ring plan to rob from magazines, paparazzi photos, and internet articles which is similarly disorientating. However, their purpose to highlight the obsession with the celebrity culture is necessary. The splices are used to better effect when they’re of Rebecca, Marc, and the rest of The Bling Ring constantly taking selfies at clubs and in the houses of celebrities and posting them on Facebook. All the while they’re rocking out to delectable thumping soundtrack that perfectly encapsulates the excessive lifestyle theme throughout the film.

Another problem jobzipk documentaries raise is the question of how close what is depicted in the film is to what happened in real life. The Bling Ring never actually raises any controversial material in regards to this, but it renders audience’s suspension of disbelief void with the question: Just how incompetent are all these people? The Bling Ring are able to enter these celebrities houses with a surprising amount of ease, which I guess is what makes this story slightly more fascinating, but it is frustrating to watch. Similarly, The Bling Ring never show any caution of being caught. They make little effort to scope out their intended target, or cover their faces or tracks very much, they rob some celebrity’s houses several times, they openly sell the goods they have stolen, and then there’s the aforementioned blatant exposure of their dirty deeds on Facebook. And just where are the parents of all these children throughout all of this? The Bling Ring certainly pushes the boundaries when it comes to tolerating the stupidity and audacity of its characters, even if it is attempting to highlight their inability to think of the consequences when privileged with such an excessive way of living.
While The Bling Ring boasts a solid cast, adriancochieci a great soundtrack, and is beautiful to look at, much like the shallow people which the film is based off, there’s not all that much substance to the film as a whole.