The Bling Ring Blu-ray Review
Brad Sturdivant
October 28th, 2013
As the closing credits wrapped on Sofia Coppola’s THE BLING RING, a revelation came to me; with the exception of Bob Haris and Charlotte from LOST IN TRANSLATION, I have hated almost every character in every Sofia Coppola movie. And if not for LOST IN TRANSLATION, I probably wouldn’t keep giving Sofia Coppola so many chances. But as it is, Translation is such a great movie that I keep hoping she can recapture some of what made her so great in the first place. But if THE BLING RING is any indication, Sofia Coppola is too out of touch with her audience these days and my hope for her is fading with each new film.
The biggest issue with THE BLING RING is that the audience almost instantly hates every character. The focus of the film is on Rebecca (Katie Chang) and Marc (Israel Broussard), who strike up a friendship early on and each share a fascination with the rich and famous. But their fascination doesn’t stop at magazines and one day they decide out of the blue to go to and rob Paris Hilton’s house. They start bragging about it and eventually catch the attention of Nicki (Emma Watson), who asks to go along for the ride. That sets off a celebrity stealing spree as the group makes their way across Hollywood. But don’t get it wrong; these kids aren’t really friends and we don’t ever get to know anyone in any detail. They’re just spoiled, entitled brats that feel they have a right to go rob people’s houses.
The very story of the film makes it hard to establish any likeable character. Marc had potential to be a sympathetic character; he’s a new kid in town, he’s gay but not comfortable with it and he desperately wants to be liked. But there’s so little focus on his character that the small effort that was made felt like a waste of time. Any opportunity for character development was sacrificed for another scene of the kids rummaging through some celebrity’s closet. THE BLING RING desperately needed a victim or someone the audience could sympathize with. But there was no one in the film to relate to; the kids were self centered and oblivious to what they were doing, we didn’t care that rich people were getting robbed and the one parent in the film (Nicki’s mother played by Leslie Mann) was probably worse than her kids. It didn’t take long for the audience to start rooting that everyone on screen either die or go to prison.
MARIE ANTOINETTE, SOMEWHERE and THE BLING RING all have two things in common; they’re all bad movies and they all feature rich, obnoxious characters with no redeeming qualities. Sofia Coppola has to understand that even rich, obnoxious people don’t like watching other rich, obnoxious people on the big screen. If she doesn’t change course and make a movie with heart and with relatable characters, the fans she has left aren’t going to stick around for long.
THE BLING RING BLU-RAY REVIEW
Video: Sofia Coppola has a very gritty, distinct way of shooting, so sometimes that can be confused for poor video quality. The truth is that this disc looks pretty great and her natural film style comes through perfectly.
Audio: The audio was sufficient.
Making The Bling Ring: On set with Sofia, the cast and crew (22:50): This isn’t bad for what it is; a look on the set of the making of the film. We get some nice footage of Sofia doing her thing and Emma Watson preparing for a scene.
Behind the real Bling Ring (23:44): It should be mandatory that any movie based on a true story have a featurette dedicated to the real story on the Blu-ray. This gives you everything you wanted to know about the people that inspired the movie.
Scene of the crime with Paris Hilton (10:36): Famously, Paris Hilton let Sofia Coppola use her real home as a setting for the movie. In this featurette, Paris shows us around her house and talks about the robberies.
Trailer
[fbcomments]
