The Bling Ring: Bad Girl Emma Watson Is a Good Thing

Emma Watson’s career arc now has something in common with Miley Cyrus. No I am deadly serious. Once Miley Cyrus was America’s Sweetheart. Then her hormones started raging and she became America’s Tramp. And now Miley Cyrus is hotter than ever if you’re into that whole trailer trash methhead skankbag thing. Leaving behind Hannah Montana was both inevitable and entirely worthwhile for Miley even if she now looks like a perpetually hungover lesbian kickboxer.

Emma Watson is following the Miley Cyrus lead by going bad girl. But in a classy way that befits a chick with an accent who has been inside a college for reasons having nothing to do with buying drugs. She is going bad by playing a tramp-stamped socialite-burglar in a Sofia Coppola movie called The Bling Ring.

You may remember the real life bling ring. This was a bunch of completely vile rich kids who began robbing people out of boredom and possibly because they had maxed out their credit cards purchasing absurdly large handbags. These over-privileged cokehead miscreants went on quite a larcenous tear before finally being nabbed by the cops. And now, because there is no justice in the world whatsoever, they have their own movie directed by certified Real Filmmaker Sofia Coppola.

What exactly fascinates Sofia Coppola so much about these hideous monsters that she would devote an entire movie to their shameless exploits? I’m guessing it’s the ennui. Sophia loves making movies about seemingly aimless people whose artfully-presented meandering activities never quite add up to an actual story but remain mesmerizing nonetheless. I can imagine this movie without ever seeing it. Shot of someone staring out a window. ‘80s shoegaze song. Scene where nothing much happens yet there is this weird undercurrent of anticipation LIKE SOMETHING MIGHT ACTUALLY HAPPEN IF WE JUST WAIT LONG ENOUGH. Forgotten ‘90s indie band track. Scene of someone staring out the window of a moving car at city lights flowing by SYMBOLIZING THE PASSAGE OF TIME OR LIKE SOMETHING ELSE KINDA DEEP. Stripper scene. ‘80s shoegaze song. Etc.,

But this time there is burglary (probably inspired by boredom). And Emma Watson attempting to make everyone forget about Hermione because she’s all grown up now like Miley except she’s only skanky INSIDE THE MOVIE. In real life she’s still classy but with that little hint of naughtiness you know?

Cause that is the whole secret to Emma Watson’s appeal right? Even when she was about fifteen and still technically innocent there was just something, what’s the word I’m looking for? Vixenish about her? You knew this chick would grow up to become sort of kinky. I have no idea if Emma Watson is kinky in real life but that doesn’t matter. She reads kinky on camera and that is the important thing. The outwardly well-groomed well-mannered posh-talking clean-cut well-adjusted girl-next-door book-reader who transmits coded messages of dirtiness via some mysterious thing going on in her face…well I’m sorry but what could possibly be hotter than that?

All Emma needed was the right vehicle for taking advantage of this sneaky naughty streak, and she may have found it by hooking up with Sofia Coppola. In fact this could turn out to be a marriage made in heaven. The director who is all about stuff going on under the surface hooking up with an actress who is all about something elusively filthy going on under the surface.

Sofia Coppola likes actresses who read dirtier than they seem at first glance and has an unerring knack for making them come across mysteriously wistful and powerfully erotic but in an art film non-smutty way. She even pulled this off with Elle Fanning which is entirely gross because Elle Fanning was about twelve at the time. But we don’t talk about that movie because THOUGHT CRIMES.

Emma Watson is okay to talk about because she’s over 18 and not related to Dakota Fanning. Bling Ring is her move into grown-up movies and I would say it’s about damn time. This is what we have been waiting for. Emma Watson finally playing someone bad. Instead of playing someone we only imagined was bad underneath the fairy-girl innocence. Thank you Sofia Coppola for performing this inestimable service on behalf of pervs. You have now fully atoned for ruining Godfather III. Now about that whole stripper thing. You wanna explain that?