Check out this Review and Movie Summary by Michael The Moviegoer.
CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC: “Declined”
Rating **
Here’s a movie that’s a mixed bag of mixed messages. The charming Isla Fisher plays the crazed shopping-addicted Rebecca Bloomwood. She has a credit card collection to equal that of a young boy’s baseball card collection. Yet she’s over the credit limit on all her cards, which in my mind makes her partly responsible for our nation’s current economic crisis. Bloomwood’s addiction is causing our banks to fail every day in alarming numbers. Sadly, that is not a subplot of this movie.
But, after a few visits to Shopoholics Anonymous, Bloomwood is on the road to recovery and the audience cheers her every decision NOT to spend money on something. All this while President Obama is trying to get Americans spending again so as to jump-start our struggling economy. That also, sadly, is not a subplot of this movie.
The movie settles for being a safe middle-of-the-road comedy. It’s obvious what it wants to be. It’s a wannabe “Devil Wears Prada” but plays nowhere near that level. ‘Shopoholic’ is wildly uneven throughout. It alternates between scenes of comic genius and far too many unnecessary scenes of silly slapstick stunts.
DVD Watch: ‘Shopoholic’ is directed by P.J. Hogan. I once thought Hogan might have re-defined the modern romantic comedy with the excellent “My Best Friend’s Wedding”, but most of his follow-up efforts only serve to prove that the genius of ‘Wedding’ was accidental. “My Best Friend’s Wedding” broke formula rules in that its star, Julia Roberts, was the story’s bad guy. She tries to destroy the wedding of sweet Cameron Diaz and the audience struggles with the unusual feeling of sympathizing with the bad guy. Rupert Everett plays Roberts’ gay friend in a career-defining performance of comic madness. There are also some choreographed musical numbers for extra added enjoyment. Nothing in Hogan’s new ‘Shopoholic’ is as much fun.
Michael The Moviegoer
