Sofia Coppolla’s detached yet intriguing movie based on a real-life ring of kids who broke into celebrity homes and stole expensive crap from them that they didn’t even know was missing.
What Works: There’s something audacious about watching shallow young thieves break into the homes of shallow young celebrities and steal items of such conspicuous consumption the celebrities don’t even know they’re missing…for a while. I particularly enjoyed Emily Watson’s much touted “walk on the walk side” as a mean girl who keeps hiding her inner ugliness behind vague, spiritual jargon that keeps framing her as the victim in all this. She obliviously prattles on about karma and negative energy when an adult interviews her, but drops it the second she’s surrounded by fellow fame-hungry teenagers. It’s a sly tweaking of the Kim Kardashian-school of celebrity where someone does whatever they can to get famous, yet has to act better than it at the same time.
What Didn’t Work: The film is deliberately detached and cold, but that doesn’t always make for the most riveting of experiences. The tension never really develops, and since most of the characters are dead-eyed zombies without a spark the plot could have been framed to ironically up the ante. Who wouldn’t want to see how these characters cope when the noose is tightening?
What I Would Have Done Differently: Seen this movie on DVD instead.