Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Confessions of a Shopaholic ~ Film Review


Directed by: PJ Hogan
Screenwriters: Tracy Jackson, Tim Firth, Kayla Alpert
Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer films
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture
Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Kristin Scott Thomas,
John Goodman, Joan Cusack, Leslie Pope.


Warning: In my movie reviews I discuss plot pretty openly here, so be warned if you haven’t seen the film yet.

I didn’t read the popular book series by writer Sophie Kinsella, but I have no doubt that there are at least a few necessary “story chunks,” as I like to call them, missing from this movie, that would have helped flesh out the characters and the plot and subplots here.

We meet Rebecca (played by Isla Fisher), our Shopaholic who says the world gets better each time she shops. Personally, I think my world would get much better if each time I ate chocolate I never gained an ounce. But, that’s me. We all have our dreams though. I get it Rebecca.

When we meet Rebecca she is in debt up to her eyeballs but continues to shop endlessly even after the company she works for folds and she is now flat broke. Through lies and sheer dumb luck she winds up with a new writing gig, this time for a finance magazine. Yep, that is the big joke of the movie. A gal hiding big debt of her own lies her way into writing financial advice from a plain speaking perspective she knows.

Her column comparing making one’s financial investment to ‘the art of shoe buying’ immediately resonates with the magazine’s readers and before she knows it Rebecca is a star employee meeting with the big wigs. She is also simultaneously developing an overnight romance with her handsome editor Luke (played by Hugh Dancy) and secretly trying to out run an overly determined debt collector. So far much of Becca's mess is truly a fairytale we women should all get a crack at. Unfortunately, very little of Becca's problems really endears us to her. She is the cause of all of her problems and yet continues to succeed without a care, even to the friend who tries to help her.

In paging through the book that this movie is based on awhile back, I seem to remember that some of Rebecca’s more creative “excuse letters’ to the debt collector are funny yet none of them make it into this movie. I think that right there is a missed opportunity to soften and perhaps counter the selfish tone of Becca a bit. Instead the screenwriters go with Rebecca’s klutziness and her moments of shopping obsession, which isn’t really enough here despite Fisher’s best comedic efforts.

The overnight romance between Rebecca and Luke (played by Hugh Dancy) is perfunctory at best despite the likeability of both Hugh Dancy and Isla Fisher. For me, a romance can’t work without chemistry. And pretty strong chemistry if you are going to advance the romance this quickly. Also, the audience at some point has to be invested enough that you hope that they’ll get together. I felt none of that here, though I admit I wished that I had. Instead, I kept wondering what Luke sees in Rebecca and why they should get together at all.
Also, the conflicts aren't hard enough to overcome. Becca hiding her debt from Luke as well as her true goal to write for the fashion magazine owned by the same parent company as Luke's magazine isn't that hard to overcome. It's a conversation. Not a life changer.

Several good actors, John Goodman, Joan Cusack (who should get an award for the number of throwaway supporting roles in Rom-Coms she does), Kristen Scott Thomas, Julie Hagerty, and Leslie Pope as the perpetual pretty girl who I know can do more, also gets a few lines but that is about it. Another wasted opportunity.

There is also a subplot with Rebecca and her engaged roommate involving a little test of their friendship, which I can say definitively “Bride Wars” did a better job of.

Despite my criticisms, I don’t think this is in any way an awful film. It’s just not funny enough, or endearing enough of a film.

This film has some good elements here with both the plot idea and certainly the actors, but chances for the bigger laughs aren’t taken.

So how would I fix it? Hmm, good question. I’ll probably need to read the book to figure out what else was left out of the screenplay before I offer any ideas.

In the meantime, if you’re a fan of the book or a fan of the actors, I’d recommend renting it when it comes out on DVD rather than resorting to paying the higher theater admission price just for the chance to see it on the big screen.

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