Five Nights In Paris

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Like David Lynch directed an episode of The Hills. Utterly hypnotic, and funny and sad in equal measure, I loved the Chanel-coated stuffing right out of Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring. Chillaxed enough to never push an agenda, I say you're simply not paying attention if you're missing the film's thorny grappling with vacuous celebrity culture and all of the shiny accoutrement that goes alongside it. "Alongside" being the operative word - here's a spirited bunch of almost-ran's by the old age of 16, pushing their way into the fast lane when it seems nobody's gonna let them ease in on their own. 

There's a pair of shots in this film that will stick with me forever - the first is a whopper, looking down god-like upon an entire Hollywood Hills box of a house as our illustrious theives make their wayroom to room like designer rats in a designer maze; but it's the second shot that I really can't stop thinking about - ringleader Rebecca stops to admire herself in the dreamy haze of a mirror mid-theft, spraying perfume on her neck, and we watch its wetness glisten and drool down her neck as her eyes shift and in them we can see she's become the person she's dreamt she could be - the star, the somebody, big and glorious - while in reality all it manages to seem is just sticky and claustrophobic.

For a movie that's been accused of both making fun of its inhabitants and reveling in their superficiality, this moment cuts deep and hard and just about broke my heart, watching this girl's mask slip, seeing just how much of a girl - a young out-of-her-depths ball of sadness and insecurity - she is. Performances across the board are lovely; Emma Watson gets the most fun role to play and walks up and down the girl like she owns the runway - fierce, fierce, fierce.

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