The Bling Ring (2013)
Directed by Sofia Coppola
Lured by stardom, a crew of aimless teens breaks into celebrity homes for a string of high-profile robberies and fame by appropriation.
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3 films that influenced The Bling Ring
What critics say influenced The Bling Ring
If the tone of lyrical crime saga has critics name-checking Spring Breakers (the portrait of adolescent ineptitude also recalls Larry Clark’s Bully), The Bling Ring isn’t so much interested in provocation as sociology.
Unlike Larry Clark’s under-appreciated Bully, which turns another true story of teen debasement and criminality into a savagely funny dark comedy, The Bling Ring doesn’t have a particular angle on these crimes.
Like her Marie Antoinette (2006), this is a giddy celebration of glamor and privilege, lightly dressed as satire; the merciless social interactions among the kids sometimes reminded me of Larry Clark's Bully (2001), but the characters are so depthless that ultimately this lands closer to Harmony Korine's cheesy Spring Breakers.
Meanwhile, at nearby Indian Hills high school, Rebecca (Katie Chang) takes an interest in new kid Marc (Israel Broussard, "Flipped") who's thrilled to be noticed by one so lovely and together.
It all starts when Rebecca (newcomer Katie Chang) befriends the shy, insecure and slightly nerdy Marc (Israel Broussard, Flipped) and the pair embark on a robbery.
Israel Broussard (2010's " Flipped ") is exceptionally charismatic as Marc, as close as the picture has to a protagonist; as an outsider who gets a pass to the inside, Broussard encapsulates in his performance the acceptance he's always yearned for and the betrayal he ultimately feels for being taken advantage of.
The story told from the perspective of Marc (Israel Broussard, from Flipped and The Chaperone ), a new student at a high school in affluent Calabasas, in the valley north of Los Angeles, who is befriended by Rebecca (newcomer Katie Chang).
Her father, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now), is Hollywood royalty; her brother, Roman (Moonrise Kingdom), is a hipster darling; and her cousin Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider et al), is an actor who falls somewhere in between those two.