REVIEW - THE BLING RING

In one of several memorable images in Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, Katie Chang's Rebecca stands before the dressing-room-style mirror of one of her mini-gang's celebrity targets, applying perfume before admiring her reflection. The gold in the lightbulbs, the silver in the glass, the bronze in the surrounding lamplight, the black, the white, the platinum... It's a tacky, artificial, intoxicating glow. It's fame. It's money. Maybe you have to live in balmy Southern California, in the hot, open air of the Los Angeles hills, and have grown up in a culture that thrives off of the ephemeral, the constantly changing, never evolving to get it. It's not a lack of intelligence in these teens, it's an inability to care, drilled into them by short lives defined by affluence and ennui, ignited by an insatiable thirst for acceptance, and by opportunism. The Bling Ring makes as good a point as can be made for the allure of such a garish, hollow lifestyle. As one of the robbers snatches a fistful of jewellery, the tastelessness and insignificance of these stolen items becomes vividly real. There's no luxury, and it leaves that thirst intact, unquenched. They'll want to go back for more - it's not enough for them because it's nothing in the first place. The only cast member who fails to respectfully capture the vibe of vapid insouciance, the dead-behind-the-eyes look is stunt-casted Emma Watson, whose gaudy parody of Nicki is notable for the near-complete absence of a modicum of truth in her portrayal. Coppola is as expert at depicting a certain atmosphere as ever, but the anachronistic details may irk viewers: who's gonna buy a bunch of Spring 2012 Versace-wearing, Azealia Banks-listening teens who've even heard of Audrina Patridge? That's sooo 2008!