Movie reviews: The Bling Ring (M18)

Movie reviews: The Bling Ring (M18)

STARRING: Emma Watson, Katie Chang, Israel Broussard

DIRECTOR: Sofia Coppola

THE SKINNY: Marc (Broussard) and Rebecca (Chang) bond over their shared love of fashion, celebrities and petty theft. On a whim, they decide to steal from socialite Paris Hilton's house. It proves easier than expected and so they target other stars including Lindsay Lohan, with their vapid friends joining in the fun.

RATING: M18

I know that The Bling Ring is probably supposed to be a cautionary tale about how Los Angeles is a wasteland and celebrity culture is insipid and materialism is bad or whatever.

Still, I can't help but be seduced.

I would love to be one of these idiot teens.

Even though they end up being arrested and spending time in jail, I would still trade their misspent youth for mine in a second.

I had fun working at my hometown Dairy Queen, but my pals and I could scarcely have imagined the sort of glamour and adventure these beautiful bourgeois brats wallowed in.

Director Coppola has done a wonderful job capturing the shimmery, silken appeal of upper-class Los Angeles.

From the mansions to the sports cars to the designer clothes, it's like some magic fairyland where capitalism actually functions properly.

The Bling Ring gang may not be as wealthy as the celebrities they rob, but they're still plenty affluent. None of them seems to have or need a proper job. They simply drift.

This is of course supposed to be sort of melancholy for the dears - poor little rich kids, ya? I don't buy it.

When your friends are all this pretty and the world you live in is this posh, you will never convince me that you are not happy deep down inside.

It may be the happiness of a lizard, the happiness of a soulless narcissist, but it sure beats the constant state of anxiety that plagues the lower classes.

I love The Bling Ring. I wanna join.


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