Given the fact that everyone is feeling the pressure of the worldwide recession in some form or another, a movie about a New York twenty-something who loves to shop is perhaps a little distasteful.
However, cinema-goers can learn a thing or two about curbing their spending from the colourful shopaholic; and enjoy a few good laughs along the way.
Australian actress Isla Fisher stars as Rebecca Bloomwood, a young journalist whose ambition it is to work for the leading fashion magazine ‘Alette.’ After losing her job at an outdoors magazine the shopaholic is desperate to get the affable position to support her $1,000 a month shopping habit.
When the job at the magazine goes to an internal staff member she applies for a job as a financial reporter at a sister magazine ‘Successful Saving.’ Although her interview with the handsome British editor Luke is disastrous she manages to land herself the job after some of her drunken insights into managing one’s finances impress him.
As Rebecca’s column ‘the girl with the green scarf’ receives critical acclaim from those within the financial industry as well as thousands of young women her financial problems reach boiling point as a determined debt collector gets closer to his prey.
Isla Fisher is hilarious as the bright young graduate whose love of shoes, bags, clothes and anything with a label on it or in a sale amounts to a total debt of $16,000, while handsome British actor (and fiance to Claire Danes ) Hugh Dancy comfortably fulfills the role of the leading man. Comedy actor extraordinare John Goodman is brilliant as Rebecca’s caring and loveable dad while Joan Cusack as her mother, shows who her daughter got her quirkiness from.
Sex and the city fashion expert Patricia Fields brings her outrageous yet cosmopolitan sense of style to the fore once again while acclaimed actors Kirsten Scott Thomas and John Lithgow complete the all-star cast.
Other reviewers have slated the movie for its fickle and shallow storyline, however given that Rebecca faces her debt and cuts up her credit card, it reveals a harsh reality that many people face similar problems. During one scene in the movie, Rebecca is astounded when a fellow shopaholic at a shopaholics anonymous meeting announces that he hadn’t used his credit card in six months. And when I found myself to be just as shocked to hear this I realised that perhaps I too could learn a thing or two from the movie!
Although Confessions of a Shopaholic isn’t going to win any comedy awards and the theme of the movie is extremely materialistic it does what it says on the tin. Based on the novel of the same title by Sophie Kinsella, this movie is a funny entertaining and enjoyable story of a young woman who tries to overcome her debts with a few funny and side splitting moments along the way.
