A24 Film No. 4: The Bling Ring (2013)

One could read Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring as another film about an “uncontrollable” youth, similar in spirit (although not in form) to movies like Spring Breakers. In both cases, young people are searching for freedom and a way out of the system, or at least trying to test how far they can push it before it pushes back. The film plays with the idea of all the possibilities that youth seems to offer, but shows how that freedom can easily go wrong. Based on a true story, The Bling Ring grounds this sense of excess and recklessness in a very specific cultural moment, marked by the online explosion of celebrity culture that had already been heavily promoted through television and celebrity-focused media.

The film follows a group of teenagers (The Bling Ring) obsessed with celebrities, fame, and luxury, who burglarize the homes of rich and famous people in Los Angeles (Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan being the most emblematic examples). Unlike the characters in Spring Breakers, these teenagers do not seem to have a dream or a clear goal. They simply move through life satisfying their impulses. What they want is not money in itself, but access to a lifestyle. As Israel Broussard’s character, Marc, points out at one moment, they just want to be part of a lifestyle that everyone wants to belong to. Stealing becomes a way to briefly inhabit that world.

Coppola’s vision reflects the shallowness and superficiality of both the characters’ lives and celebrity culture more broadly. The film often feels like it is more style than substance, but this works perfectly with what it is portraying. The cameos of real celebrities, such as Paris Hilton playing herself, blur the line between fiction and reality and reinforce the emptiness at the core of this world. The fashion, the music, and the overall aesthetics are very much on point and now function as a time capsule of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Watching it today, after years of even faster-paced shows and films, it almost feels refreshing. It also raises the question of how this story would look in the age of influencers and TikTok, where the same themes would apply but the structure would likely be even more fragmented and accelerated.

The film also explores the parasocial relationships that some of the characters develop with celebrities. While this is not a new phenomenon and has existed since the beginnings of celebrity culture, here celebrities are not simply figures to admire from a distance. They become objects of desire, imitation, and even identification. The characters do not just aspire to this lifestyle: they want to become part of it. This distorted sense of proximity helps explain the confidence with which they walk into these houses, as if the boundary between fan and idol, public and private, no longer truly exists.

Because of when the film was made and released, it is hard not to connect it to the idea of “YOLO” and a certain millennial optimism. In addition to that aim to live life to the fullest, the characters show almost no sense of morality. Apart from a few comments from Marc, who occasionally suggests that maybe they should stop, they do not care about consequences or about being caught. They act as if they are invincible, as if they are going to live forever. 

The characters are not presented in a way that invites strong empathy or emotional connection from the audience. With the partial exception of Marc (who begins the film as an outsider and is also the only one to show a minimal sense of concern about what they are doing), the group remains largely inaccessible. Even Marc’s hesitation is brief and ultimately inconsequential. This emotional distance makes the film easy to watch without becoming too emotionally engaged, reinforcing the sense of emptiness and detachment that defines the characters themselves.

Even as they become more reckless  (robbing more houses, failing to cover their tracks, and openly bragging about their actions), their behavior is actually rewarded socially. Marc mentions receiving hundreds of Facebook friend requests when the case went viral, turning them into idols among their peers, where showing how many Chanel purses you own becomes the ultimate status symbol.

The ending of the story is already known, both because it is based on real events and because the film includes fragments of interrogations and interviews. Still, halfway through the movie, the question becomes not if they will get caught, but when. More importantly, one wonders whether their fall will actually mean anything to them. Will they care? The answer seems to be no. They do not regret what they did, and no lesson is really learned. 

In the end, I don’t think The Bling Ring seem interested in asking the audience to reflect deeply on these teenagers or to moralize their behavior. Instead, it works as a portrait of a specific moment in culture, one marked by celebrity worship, excess, and the illusion of endless freedom. Even the casting of Emma Watson, appearing for the first time in a role completely different from Hermione, reinforces this break from innocence and stability. The film does not explain or justify its characters. It simply lets them exist, empty and unsatisfied, in a world that briefly rewards them for it.

Dir. Sofia Coppola

Emma Watson, Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Leslie Mann, Taissa Farmiga, Claire Julien