Confessions of a Shopaholic

In the current economic climate, it'd be easy to rail against conspicuous-consumption champion Confessions of a Shopaholic. The film attempts to be a cautionary tale against spending more than you can afford, but it spends its entire 100-minute run time hypocritically celebrating Sex and the City-level spending and fetishization of designer labels. The makers of Shopaholic should certainly feel guilty for the product they've made, but not for its message; they should regret making such a truly awful film.

Wedding Crashers' Isla Fisher stars as Rebecca Bloomwood, a girl with high heels and a low credit rating thanks to her shopping addiction. To get an in at Vogue stand-in "Alette," Becky takes a job at a financial magazine, writing a column about saving. With a debt collector trying to sniff out her designer perfume, Becky tries to keep her financial foibles a secret from the rest of the world, especially her charming new boss, Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy). But how can she behave when shiny new toys beckon?

Shopaholic does have one thing going for it: its cast. Buoyed by the bouncy Fisher as the titular addict, this comedy features a list of recognizable faces as long as its heroine's credit card bill: Hugh Dancy, Kristin Scott Thomas, Krysten Ritter, John Goodman, Joan Cusack, Fred Armisen, Lynn Redgrave, John Lithgow, Leslie Bibb, Julie Hagerty, etc. But almost everyone's part is small, perhaps the problem of cobbling together a single script from two novels by Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan. The transition to film is a shaky one; the first book's London setting becomes Manhattan, and it loses a bit of its luster in the process (though perhaps this sometimes Anglophile and current New York resident finds that the move hits a bit too close to home). The worst addition? Ridiculous talking mannequins that tempt Becky into buying. They're silly, out of place, and poorly done. I expect better effects from a movie produced by Jerry Bruckheimer of all people.

Another of the film's faults is that many plot elements are glossed over, particularly Becky's romance with Luke. She gushes over a pair of Pucci boots far more than she does her potential beau, and there's the problem with calling Shopaholic a romantic comedy: there's far too little love here for that distinction. But for that matter, there's also far too little comedy, which is especially surprising given the level of talent here.