The weekend continues onward, and with it comes a new trailer for The Bling Ring, the upcoming film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Go ahead and watch below.
It’s a little startling just how unappealing this trailer is. Despite the level of credibility that comes with Sofia Coppola’s name, nearly everything on display here is loud and garish to the point of becoming obnoxious- youth and riches and sex and partying and very little else. Aside from a few quick shots of security camera footage and what appears to be webcam footage (which may imply some diversity of the formats used in the final film), but everything else is bogged down with enough slow-motion to feel at home on some throwaway MTV reality show. Were Sofia Coppola’s name not mentioned in the trailer, this one would be a complete write-off.
But given Coppola’s previous body of work (especially the spectacular Lost in Translation), one can assume The Bling Ring is not the cinematic equivalent of The Hills. There may be enormous intellectual depth in the final product, but the trailer isn’t selling that in the slightest . This is fifty-three seconds of fame and glamour (despite a few shots at the tail end of the trailer that indicate an unhappy ending) that seems more intent on advertising Emma Watson as a sex symbol than it does pitching a film that fans of Sofia Coppola would actually pay to see. Perhaps it’s simply poor marketing. With less blaring pop music and more camerawork than just a quick montage, maybe this trailer could convey an insightful idea about the rich and the famous instead of just using those aspects to sell tickets. But there’s also the chance that the trailer is accurate, and The Bling Ring is simply more concerned with style than it is with substance.
These are the kind of unpleasant situations that are spawned by a weak trailer.
