Review: The Bling Ring

I’ve long been a fan of Sofia Coppola’s work – especially Lost in Translation, which ranks as one of my all-time favorite movies.  That work really showcases Coppola’s ability to build out a robust story in spaces where very little seems to be going on.  So when I heard that she was directing a feature starring the underrated Emma Watson (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), I was sure The Bling Ring would be a can’t miss project.  Unfortunately, I may have been completely wrong in this assessment.

The plot of the movie is based on the real-life events surrounding a group of misguided youths who take their pop culture obsession and excessive materialism to the extreme when they systematically burglarize the homes of Hollywood socialites.  Designer clothing, gaudy jewelry, fast cars, and drugs lead this group deeper and deeper down this road of criminal self-indulgence even as the walls of justice close in on them.

So let’s get right into it.  I am slightly unsure if The Bling Ring is really good, or really really bad.  And here’s why.  For a story that has a juicy mix of narcissism, insecurity, and deviance, the movie feels mundane and almost pointless.  The characters are bland, vapid, and annoying and this makes for bad storytelling.  It’s hard to relate to them or to empathize with them; and worse still to rationalize a single thing that they do.  And as events unfolded and the plot thickened, I found myself increasingly disengaged and disinterested in their plight.

However, the optimist in me who believes in Sofia Coppola as filmmaker wonders (ever-so-slightly) if this is by design.  Some have hailed The Bling Ring as a brilliant commentary on youthful ambivalence and society’s shallow obsession with all things celebrity.  To believe this then might suggest that my reaction to this film might be by design and thus a stroke of genius by the director.  And as much as I would like to buy this, it’s just too tough a pill to swallow.  First and foremost, storytellers are supposed to create narratives that are compelling and entertain and no matter what kind statement this film is trying to make, it fails to do either.

It should come as no big surprise that Emma Watson is the best part of the movie and that goes beyond the obvious reasons.   It’s always interesting to watch an actor take on a role that runs contrary to their previous work; especially so when they embrace the challenge the way Watson embraces the role of Nikki – an aspiring celebrity.  She exudes superficiality, materialism, narcissism, and every other ism one would associate with the fringe of the entertainment industry.  Her ability to capture the pseudo hoity valley girl accent is also a marvel.

Unfortunately, Watson is in reality the third star in this film.  Top billing goes to Katie Chang and Israel Broussard as Rebecca and Marc.  As two youths who meet at an at-risk high school, they are the driving force behind the burglaries and thus the success of the movie rests on their inexperienced shoulders.  Chang’s performance is empty and bland rendering her character uninteresting, while Broussard’s is hammed up and overly eager.  In some ways their work should compliment one another, but their respective performances only work to drag the film deeper into mediocrity.

As for Claire Julien and Taissa Farmiga (sister of Vera) as the final two members of the crew, I believe you could walk to your local mall and pick out any two people to take their respective places and get the same level of performance.  To say that the un-dynamic duo add very little to the movie is a gross understatement.  And Leslie Mann, well one can only wonder who she owed a favor to, because her presence in a movie of this ilk is both odd and perplexing.

So you might have surmised by now that this is not a particularly good movie.  I am going to guess that you could probably find a movie-of-the-week on Lifetime Network or Oxygen that is on par with (if not better than) this one.  It lacks that big picture feel and a compelling narrative to warrant a theatrical release.  Now perhaps someone smarter than me with a better eye for cinematic art can tell you what nuances I missed or why this is actually a film of great merit, but as a regular movie enthusiast I believe that it flat out stinks.  I would avoid this one at all cost, but then you probably don’t really have to go out of your way to miss it.  It’s not going to get a big marketing push on DVD or show up on any interesting lists.  Instead I would direct your attention to The Perks of Being a Wallflower to get your Emma Watson fix.  In my opinion, it was one of the best movies of 2012.

Standout Performance:  Emma Watson.

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Review: This is 40

This is 40 is a perplexing film.  Not so much the premise or the plot, but perhaps the execution.  I say perhaps because I am not entirely sure.  Here’s the thing, there are some very good scenes in this movie, and a strong number of laugh out loud moments expertly executed by talented actors with great comedic timing, and yet as I walked out of the theater, I didn’t feel like I watched a great movie.  In fact, in a lot of ways, Judd Apatow’s latest film barely feels like a movie at all.    But I digress.

This is 40 is a spin off of Apatow’s 2007 hit Knocked Up, following up on the lives of Paul Rudd’s Pete and Leslie Mann’s Debbie as they stand on the cusp of their forties.  The movie is an authentic albeit somewhat sensationalized look at some of the issues that can befall married couples as their respective families mature.  Daddy issues, communication, managing children’s access to technology, finances, the film runs the gamut of challenges facing spouses, parents, and professionals.

So here’s the thing, there are some incredibly funny scenes as well as others that are insightful, witty, and fun.  Apatow has written a script that captures the essence of what it feels like to transition into middle age.  The problem then with the movie is the connective tissue between these moments.  There is some semblance of an overall arc to the film revolving around Rudd and Mann, but there’s not enough there to really drive the movie and make it feel like something more than a collection of vignettes.  This makes you wonder what the point of the narrative really is and thus makes the proverbial whole feel less than the sum of the individual parts.

In this film you are treated to the garden variety Paul Rudd performance.  He plays an affable, funny every man and does it well, but there is nothing fresh or exceptional about this turn.  Ditto for Leslie Mann who effortlessly slips into the role of the somewhat difficult but mildly endearing wife as she has so many times in the past.  There is nothing groundbreaking about her work, but that’s not what the role calls for.  As for the rest of the cast, Maude and Iris Apatow do a nice job rounding out the family though at times Apatow seems to indulge his real-life children with scenes that run far too long or seem oddly out of place.  Robert Smigel, Melissa McCarthy, and Chris O’Dowd do an impressive job in supporting roles adding some valuable comedic elements to the movie, while John Lithgow, Albert Brooks, and Megan Fox (surprisingly) are decent contributors.

If you are over the age of thirty or if you have kids, there may be enough wit and humor in this movie to make it worth watching in the cinema.  However, if you thought Project X was a great movie, then you probably want to look elsewhere for entertainment (and reassess what you should consider entertaining).  Again, with so many superlatives and few complaints to go around it feels strange that I can’t give this movie a stronger endorsement, but at the end of the day a narrative needs to take you from point A to some other destination and This is 40 never really goes anywhere at all.  My best advice is to make it a rental with moderate expectations and you will find yourself pleasantly surprised.

Standout Performance: Jason Siegel as Jason.  Siegel is hilarious, reprising his role from Knocked Up and his scenes with Chris O’Dowd are some of the best in the movie.

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Review: The Change-Up

The Change-Up is a textbook example of good cast / bad movie.  There are so many places where this film goes wrong that it’s hard to find a good place to begin the critique.  If I had to pin it on one thing I would say that Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are two very funny actors, but are way too similar in their respective styles to sell the brand of comedy that director David Dobkin is trying to sell for nearly two hours (30 minutes way too long).

The straight man/funny man shtick is a classic and when done correctly can be incredibly entertaining (think Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin or more recently Vaughn and Favreau in “Swingers”).    The reason why this formula fails in “The Change-Up” is because while Bateman is adept at playing the straight man, both he and Reynolds draw their comedy from a wry sarcastic delivery.   One person has to set up the proverbial pins so the other can knock them down but unfortunately there’s not enough of a contrast between the two actors to properly set up the punch lines.

Another major issue with this film is that it is just not funny.  When you think about “switch” movies – Freaky Friday and the Hot Chick – there are significant visual differences between the protagonists (age, gender, appearance) that lend to physical (and often absurd) comedy.   In this film, we have one Caucasian male in his 30’s trading places with another.  Wow - mind-blowing!  And true to form, they figure out how to solve their own lives by walking a mile in each other's shoes – not too bad a gig when you’re walking that mile with Leslie Mann or Olivia Wilde. 

So then what we’re left with here is a raunchy comedy that is not funny and that wants you to be emotionally invested in the third act to characters that amount to little more than two jumbled masses of tired clichés.  I found more catharsis in watching Judge Reinhold of Beverly Hills Cop fame and Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage of the Wonder Years) do this song and dance back in the 80’s classic Vice Versa. 

Avoid this movie – in fact, avoid most of what Ryan Reynolds is doing while he is the midst of a “Nick Cage Cash Grab” because he is on an epically bad run not seen since well…since the run that Adam Sandler is currently on.  Do not rent, do not VOD, do not watch even if it is for free.  You have been warned.

Standout Performance: Alan Arkin really sells his role as Reynolds’ dad, but that performance gets lost in the mediocrity.

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