Debt Accompli | Isla Fisher is a hopeless spenthrift who lands an improbable (and importantly high-paying) gig as a columnist for Successful Savings magazine in Confessions of a Shopaholic.
CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC
Directed by P.J. Hogan. Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Lithgow. Now playing.
*1/2
Okay. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. It could be that some pathways are crossed or there’s some lazy wiring — I mean, I’m sitting here silently at a romcom about shopping! There must be something wrong with the laugh function in my brain. So I do a quick checklist: was I in a good mood when I entered the theatre? Yup. Are people around me laughing? Kind of. It’s sort of steely in my section, but that soprano in the front row thinks it’s hilarious. Maybe I just need to kickstart my lungs, put a little effort into it. So I try to laugh ... but it comes out as a cough and then a wheeze. I listen to my friend sitting next to me and nothing, not even a giggle. Confessions of a Shopaholic, it seems, simply isn’t funny.
With this adaptation of Sophie Kinsella’s bestselling chick-lit series, director P.J. Hogan (My Best Friend’s Wedding) was handed the perfect Hollywood economic bailout bundle: a pre-existing fanbase, a love interest with a British accent, and an adorably flawed main character in Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher). She’s a girl struggling to keep a job that doesn’t suit her just so she can support her addiction to shopping, an addiction that’s made her a rather good liar and debt-dodger.
So just as the big banks had to explain themselves in front of Congress (and you call a gal with a credit card a spendthrift?) I think Hogan et al. should have to explain why they wasted such a gift. And I have one question to lead things off: Do you think we’re stupid?
Admittedly, Hogan has already answered that question, when he felt the need to have Rebecca’s sidekick Suze (Krysten Ritter), break down the irony of having a debt-ridden shopaholic write for a financial planning magazine. Clearly they think we’re thicker than a wedge heel.
While the film spends its time pointing out the ironic, it leaves itself very little time to develop Rebecca’s relationship with her leading man, Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy), her boss at Successful Savings magazine. Brandon falls for her at some point, I’m just not sure when; perhaps it’s when she writes a supposedly genius article comparing investment management with faux-cashmere — a read-the-label warning. Her metaphor goes viral and so does her nom de plume. Eventually, her success catches up to her when her debt collector, Derek Smeath (Robert Stanton), exposes her as a fraud on national television and she’s forced to face her $9,000 credit card bill.
Of all the things this film exaggerates, a $9,000 debt is nothing, especially when you consider Rebecca supposedly frequents Macy’s, Dior, and Louboutin. It’s pretty much the only detail that’s not rationalized for the audience, since from beginning to end, the film tries to justify what its audience already understands, and that’s shopping. We get the concept of retail therapy and our mutual understanding of her conundrum should have been the source of Shopaholic’s comedy, not the sight of Fisher wriggling and writhing all over the frame.
Here’s a tip for successful savings though, ladies: skip this film and keep that $12.50 in your piggy bank.
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