Last week I headed along to the New Zealand International Film Festival, more specifically – to see The Bling Ring. This is the latest offering from one of my favourite filmmakers, Sofia Coppola.
Inspired by actual events, Coppola created the screenplay after reading a Vanity Fair article on the “Hollywood Hills Burglar Bunch” a group of Los Angeles high school kids who famously broke into and robbed the houses of some of Hollywood’s most notable young celebs – Megan Fox, Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Rachel Bilson, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom.
Miss Coppola manages to tie in today’s obsession with social media beautifully, telling the story of how these fame-obsessed Gen-Z teenagers use the internet to track celebrities’ whereabouts in order to break into their homes and treat each brazen burglary as their own free-for-all shopping excursion.
From the opening frames Coppola takes a straight up approach and allows the story to just play out and tell itself, giving the movie a voyeuristic feel. We are merely peering in on the events as they happened – a group of middle-class, celebrity-obsessed kids from the Valley tracking their favourite stars online, heading on over to their houses while they’re out-of-town (timely reminder to those that still tweet and FB their every move around town – DON’T!) letting themselves in and helping themselves to whatever takes their fancy.
The Bling Ring is a smart, subtle social satire, with incredibly strong statements on fame, privacy, social media, materialism, personal boundaries, remorse, the cult of celebrity, and the Millennial generation’s seeming sense of entitlement and utter lack of distinction between right and wrong.
I personally LOVED this movie and gave it 9 Jaffas out of 10!
I highly recommend, that if you get the chance to go to the NZIFF, you head along and see The Bling Ring! Follow the jump to www.nziff.co.nz and check out the remaining NZ Film Festival schedule.
Ange x
Gurlinterrupted
A Girl Interrupted By Fashion, Beauty & Anything Pretty That Catches My Eye
