The Bling Ring
A24 | Release Date: June 14, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
26
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanJun 12, 2013
For a while, the girls' personalities seem almost interchangeable, but that's part of the texture. Katie Chang gives the leader a ripe synthetic glow, and Emma Watson does a remarkable job of demonstrating that glassy-eyed insensitivity need not be stupid. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJun 20, 2013
The Bling Ring is a sly, often hilarious and at times sobering look at the 21st century fascination with celebrities. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle SmithJun 13, 2013
In other words, this punkish, sleek film about beautiful kids wallowing in purloined Prada could have been written by a grumpy 65-year-old white guy in gabardine, provided he had a sense of irony. The Bling Ring is the bridge between Coppola and Bill O’Reilly. Read full review
88
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreJun 11, 2013
As with her best films, Coppola is utterly at ease in this milieu and it shows. Read full review
86
Film.comDavid EhrlichJun 11, 2013
Uncharacteristically loose and deceptively frivolous, The Bling Ring is as much of an attack on The Hills Generation as any of Coppola’s previous films were an exercise in self-pity, which is to say not at all. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubBen KenigsbergJun 12, 2013
The movie captures a moment when the lines separating anonymity, fame, and notoriety are finer than ever. And as Watson’s social climber prattles on to reporters about what a great “learning lesson” her criminal experience has been, it’s easy to see another star in the making. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonCath ClarkeJul 2, 2013
This is easily Coppola’s funniest film. Leslie Mann is hilarious as Nicki’s phony spiritual mum. Read full review
80
EmpireStaff (Not credited)Jul 1, 2013
Girls meets Ocean’s Eleven, The Bling Ring might be a film for right now rather than the ages, but Sofia Coppola’s heist movie is visually arresting, well acted, capricious fun. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua RothkopfJun 11, 2013
The Bling Ring, Sofia Coppola’s deceptively shallow but ultimately fascinating latest, is animated by that spirit of we-don’t-give-a-f**k playfulness. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid DenbyJun 6, 2013
May be the most exquisitely crafted movie ever made about a bunch of nitwits. [10 & 17 June 2013, p. 110]
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 16, 2013
Coppola’s uproarious and bitingly timely film feels every inch a necessary artwork. Read full review
80
VarietyScott FoundasMay 16, 2013
The Bling Ring traces an intriguing feedback loop of which it is knowingly a part: a movie that affords its subjects the very immortality they so aggressively sought. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenJun 21, 2013
How do you make a movie about shallow people in a shallow culture and not end up with a shallow movie? For writer-director Sofia Coppola, the answer is to dramatize a story “based on actual events,” then to step back and present it as a case study in pure anthropology. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaJun 21, 2013
The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola's energetic, elegant, and entertaining take on this real-life story - a comedy, of sorts, if what it says about our obsession with the famous and the frivolous weren't so totally depressing. Read full review
75
Washington PostAnn HornadayJun 20, 2013
Like a seductively lambent hall of mirrors, The Bling Ring lays bare the venality of train-wreck celebrity culture, striving and self-deception by dramatizing a fact that’s as delicious as it is depressing. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJun 20, 2013
Coppola and her brilliant cinematographer, Harris Savides, keep the action simple, but the perspective is perfect. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversJun 13, 2013
Emma Watson is sensational as Nicki. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnMay 16, 2013
Coppola presents a smart cross-examination of the impact of media exposure on fickle young minds. While the ambitions of its young thieves often blur together and lack precise definition, The Bling Ring is the director's breeziest work, allowing the story to glide along with the ease of a heist movie. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottJun 13, 2013
The Bling Ring occupies a vertiginous middle ground between banality and transcendence, and its refusal to commit to one or the other is both a mark of integrity and a source of frustration. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinJun 10, 2013
Apart from scenes with Leslie Mann as a mother who propagates the wisdom of The Secret (she’d be too heavy-handed for a Disney Channel sitcom), The Bling Ring is enjoyable. And it’s always easy on the eyes. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerJun 14, 2013
This is a movie that cries out for more than the too-cool-for-school Coppola’s trademark hipster anomie. She may be too much a part of the celebrity-mongering world she portrays to do justice to its injustices. Read full review
65
NPRTomas HachardJun 14, 2013
It's when Coppola lets the beautiful, gorgeous things retain their sparkle that The Bling Ring shines most brightly. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJun 21, 2013
The studied impassivity of The Bling Ring feels increasingly like a dodge as the movie progresses; we sense an anger and a moralism that the director’s too cool or too wary or too close to engage. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comIgnatiy VishnevetskyJun 21, 2013
Coppola's approach to the subject is largely impartial; depending on the viewer, this can seem refreshing or off-putting. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsJun 20, 2013
Watson is a revelation here as a brand-obsessed bad girl. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia PuigJun 13, 2013
The Bling Ring is the cinematic equivalent of the vapid, superficial kids it features — all visual panache and minimal substance. Read full review
60
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzJun 21, 2013
It’s fun while it lasts, but ultimately forgettable, kind of like the people they stole from. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJun 21, 2013
Watching it, one gets the feeling that Coppola knows these vampiric types all too well. What unfolds feels like a cross between "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and "Natural Born Killers," and a film that is far more disapproving than glamorizing of the go-go-go Los Angeles lifestyle -- but fascinating nonetheless. Read full review
60
Total FilmKate StablesJun 15, 2013
Sharp and shiny as the jewellery its twisted teens pilfer, Coppola’s cautionary tale eschews action for angsting about celeb- obsessed culture. Worth it just to hear Watson snarl “I wanna ROB!” Read full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 16, 2013
The final notes of irony and repudiation may be laboured and obvious, but this is an intriguingly intuitive and atmospheric movie. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyMay 16, 2013
Coppola’s attitude toward her subject seems equivocal, uncertain; there is perhaps a smidgen of social commentary, but she seems far too at home in the world she depicts to offer a rewarding critique of it. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianMarc MohanJun 20, 2013
The Bling Ring still feels more like a magazine article overstretched into a feature length film. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallJun 19, 2013
Coppola's movie has a sense of indie vitality, although the energy feels wasted by running in place. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyJun 13, 2013
Make no mistake, it is lovely to look at this celebrity bedazzled bit of L.A. crime history for a while. But the movie ultimately leaves you feeling as empty as the lives it means to portray. Read full review
50
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekJun 11, 2013
Even though Coppola is one of our most compassionate storytellers, she can't bring herself to like these kids much. She's not cynical enough to turn this story into satire. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineR. Kurt OsenlundJun 10, 2013
Sofia Coppola seems curiously unmotivated to bring full analysis or provocation to her themes, leaving the film feeling like a disappointingly toothless satire. Read full review
50
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthMay 16, 2013
It's the picture's lack of focus that eventually diminishes whatever little The Bling Ring has to say. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternJun 20, 2013
The point of the film is vacuous materialism, but the way these larcenous children return the camera's impassive gaze suggests that no one is home behind their beautiful faces and dead eyes. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJun 19, 2013
The problem with The Bling Ring is that it feels as soulless as its young protagonists, and of course there’s little sympathy to be found either for the story’s über-rich victims like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierJun 13, 2013
Narratively static and morally banal. That may be par for the course, however, when half the movie is spent watching shallow kids try on other people’s clothes. Read full review
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