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Home > Movies > Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic

(No longer in theaters)
  • Rating: PG — for some mild language and thematic elements
  • Director: P.J. Hogan   Cast: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman, John Lithgow
  • Running Time: 112 minutes
  • Reader Rating: Write a Review

Genre

Drama

Producer

Jerry Bruckheimer

Distributor

Walt Disney Studios

Release Date

Feb 13, 2009

Release Notes

Nationwide

Review

The makers of Sex and the City are lucky that their movie came out eight months ago, instead of now, on the other side of the time warp, when rabid designer-label consumption seems even more dismayingly out of touch. That era is gone, baby, gone. Indeed, any film set in the world of media or finance or real estate in which the central topics of discussion are dating and fashion instead of layoffs, foreclosures, and the end of Life As We Know It belongs to a distant past, like Judy Garland all atingle over those wondrous inventions at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Whatever else it is, the aggressively silly romantic comedy Confessions of a Shopaholic is in sync with the curve: Its theme is addiction to spending, its suspense tied to maxed-out credit cards and a bulldoggish bill collector. If the movie didn’t pander so madly to the audience for Sex and the City and Legally Blonde, it might have been a comedy touchstone instead of a cringeworthy footnote.

The dizzy white-girl comedienne du jour is Isla Fisher, poised to seize a share of the Reese–Sarah Jessica–Kate–Drew–Sandra–Renée market as budding journalist Rebecca Bloomwood, who confesses in voice-over that she can’t resist the siren call of the shop window. The movie has a nifty premise for an excesses-in-capitalism farce: With $16,000 in credit-card debt, Rebecca uses her anxieties as the springboard for a column on financially prudent shopping in a money magazine edited by British dreamboat Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy, whose name—a mash-up of Hugh Grant and Mr. Darcy— was made for chick flicks). But what if her readers—and her handsome boss—discover her hypocritical profligacy? The movie lifts off when it goes surreal or slapsticky, when clothing-store mannequins come alive and woo the riven addict, and when Rebecca ducks into stairwells to avoid the collection agent (Robert Stanton). Fisher is one of the few non-American actors liberated by a Yank accent: The broad syllables suit her open face and headlong tread.

It’s too bad we never get a sampling of Rebecca’s columns, and that’s not a quibble: We’d admire her more if we heard her critique what she loves most dearly. But this is not a thinking woman’s chick flick; idiocies abound. It’s the kind of comedy in which male execs are taken with the heroine’s graceless interjections because they’re stunned by her brilliance. Although it would have meant rewriting Sophie Kinsella’s best seller, Confessions would have been livelier if Rebecca had fallen for her debt collector instead of the rich Brit—if fiscal responsibility became madly sexy.

The chief problem with the film is its hyperdrive editing, for which I don’t entirely blame director P. J. Hogan or scissorhands-for-hire William Goldenberg. Jerry Bruckheimer produced the movie, and this is tempus Bruckheimerus, with actors forced to squeal and pop their eyes if they want to register. I was torn by the presence of such performers as John Lithgow, Joan Cusack, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Lynn Redgrave (in the illustrious role of “Drunken Lady at Ball”). They are all working far below their abilities. Yet they are working. These hard times have softened this critic’s lordly disdain and triggered a new empathy: Take that sitcom job! Go out for that Verizon commercial! Save yourselves!