No simple, complex joys in 'Shopaholic'
Watching "Confessions of a Shopaholic" is like ordering the chicken salad at McDonald's.
You don't get the inner smugness of a scrumptiously healthy meal, but you can't wallow in the shameful joy of a Big Mac, fries and shake, either.
Your only consolation is the grim satisfaction of knowing that you could have done a lot worse.
Similarly, "Shopaholic" fails as even an escapist tale of shopping montages and high fashion pleasure.
How could it not, with the nation in the midst of its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
But neither is "Shopaholic" a morality play that outlines the real dangers of materialism and spending beyond your means.
How could that possibly happen, either, in a movie that appears to think $16,000 represents a titanic load of debt? (You could spend more than that on one Birkin bag.)
In "Shopaholic," problem shopper and would-be fashion journalist Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) tackles credit card bills, debt collectors and adorable magazine editor Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy). In the meantime, no comedy cliché stone remains unturned, with falls, spills and horrible bridesmaid dresses galore.
The movie's meager charms come mostly courtesy of Fisher, with Dancy delivering his lines like someone doing a really bad Hugh Grant impression.
Fisher's wide-eyed dunce of a heroine isn't any kind of female role model, though, and it's more mysterious than the Kennedy assassination how someone who thinks every British person is in line for the throne manages to cross the street without getting hit by a bus.
Supporting performances by Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Bloomwood's parents, Kristin Scott Thomas as a stereotypical French fashion editor named Alette Naylor and Fred Armisen as Brandon's boss are all well-meaning but flat, thanks to the script for "Confessions of a Shopaholic," based on Sophie Kinsella's book.
The dialogue is excreable and the fashion questionable (were those seriously Gucci boots?), but the film's worst sin is the milquetoast way it handles Bloomwood's credit problems.
Depressingly, Bloomwood suffers absolutely no long-term consequences for lying, cheating and buying a warehouse full of clothes she can't afford (albeit a wardrobe of Prada and Christian Louboutin for the bargain-basement price of less than 20 grand).
Yes, there are some temporary inconveniences, but our little shopaholic doesn't even have to give up fantastic fashion. The last scene shows her in a gorgeous dress, coat and set of opera gloves, with no more than a quick aside about how the dress was borrowed.
With real people in this country suffering real consequences from overspending - bankruptcy, homelessness, foreclosure - "Shopaholic" seems as quaint as an Amish village in comparison.
You can find better escapism in "Sex and the City" reruns and you can certainly find more startling reality-checks.
Just watch the stock market sometime.
"Confessions of a Shopaholic"
Rating: 2 stars
Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, John Goodman, Joan Cusack, John Lithgow, Lynn Redgrave
Directed by: P.J. Hogan
Other: A Walt Disney release. Rated PG. 112 minutes