The Bling Ring

Sofia Coppola, the brilliant director of The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation and Somewhere, has thus far shown a knack for making slightly-stoned movies dealing in the ennui of youth and/or celebrity. Her latest, The Bling Ring, is concerned with the same themes but ups the pace. This dreamy true-life tale about a group of L.A. teens who would break into the Hollywood Hills mansions of the rich and famous (Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox were among their victims) and treat them like shopping malls, pilfering millions-worth of designer swag and making off into the night like pixies, is her first movie to pop.

The style is cool and aloof, but look closely and there are clues that Coppola has a soft spot for these haute couture crims – as appallingly self-obsessed as they are, she clearly admires their gumption. The heart of the film is a fascinating friendship between the supercool ringleader Rebecca (Katie Chang) and Marc (Israel Broussard), the frumpy, sexually ambiguous new-kid she takes under her wing, and it’s their journey that lends the film the melancholy that’s become Coppola’s trademark. It’s not the fact that these teens are heading to juvenile hall that’s so bleak, or that all they care about is reality TV and the latest gossip on TMZ, it’s that Rebecca unfriends her BFF on Facebook as soon as the shit hits the fan. For these kids, that's the ultimate crime.