The Bling Ring (MA). Director: Sofia Coppola. Starring: Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Claire Julien, Taissa Farmiga, Georgia Rock, Leslie Mann. 90 minutes
I think this situation was attracted into my life because it was supposed to be a huge learning lesson for me to grow and expand as a spiritual human being. I see myself being like an Angelina Jolie, but even stronger, pushing even harder for the universe and for peace and for the health of our planet. God didn't give me these talents and looks to just sit around being a model or being famous. I want to lead a huge charity organisation. I want to lead a country, for all I know.
Vanity, vapidity, denial of responsibility (the situation 'was attracted into my life'), the assumption of a movie star as the ultimate object of emulation — as a thematic précis of Coppola's (Lost In Translation, Marie Antoinette) latest film about young women steeped in the malaise of affluence, the above quote captures it perfectly. The film takes the true story of a group of rich teenagers who burgled a number of celebrities' Hollywood mansions during 2008 and 2009, and turns it into a hilarious and unsettling satire of materialism and celebrity worship.
Drawn from the 2010 Vanity Fair article that inspired the film, the quote is recited with perfectly affected sincerity by Watson. She is the film's most bankable star, but receives only third-billing; a fact that would no doubt irk the woman who originally spoke those words, then 18-year-old Alexis Neiers, whose trial as a member of the 'Bling Ring' was captured in the short-lived reality TV series Wild Teens. Her name has been changed too (to Nicki), as have all the characters' names; perhaps as a tacit rejection by Coppola of the equation of notoriety with celebrity.
These then high school students stole up to $3 million worth of jewellery, clothes, shoes and other items from the homes of celebrities including Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Orlando Bloom. They described the process as 'shopping'. Disturbingly for all proponents of privacy, they used simple internet searches to locate the hallowed houses and ascertain when their occupants would be absent. The Bling Ring portrays this pastime as an outcome of a kind of materialistic cult of want, centred on a distinctly American obsession with celebrity.
Coppola depicts these young people as inhabiting a world where meaning and morality have been supplanted absolutely by