confessions of a shopaholic

It’s a rainy Raleigh Saturday.  That’s a shame for the Raleigh downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Hillsborough Street Renaissance Festival. I went to see “Confessions of a Shopaholic”. Have you seen in it? It got terrible reviews. Well I’m no Siskel and Eibert but I wouldn’t give it the total thumbs down. It wasn’t exactly a slow movie either… maybe a bit shallow, and definitely a girly movie, but that’s what you’d expect anyway from the movie title.

Lemme back up a minute. I’d picked up the Sophie Kinsella series on audio CDs years ago. And when I heard there was a movie made, I was like ‘wait a minute when did the main character “Bex” (Rebecca Bloomwood) become an American?’ In the audio books, she’s a Brit with very dry Brit wit and humor (…if you wanna call it funny). I actually like the American Bloomwood better in the movie ‘cause I can actually relate to her as she’s a cute, sweet, and likeable girl. She’s not uptight and prim and proper like she is portrayed as a Brit.  Wouldn’t have bothered me one bit if she had a southern accent.  She’s just your ordinary girl with a big spending problem. As she says in the beginning of the movie, there are real prices and there are mom prices.

Apparently the real prices are purchased with “magic cards” as she called them. That’s sorta fairy tale and silly but actually the underlying meaning behind shopaholicism is true. Buy now, pay later…instant gratification!

In the movie, Rebecca is very much like a Legally Blonde Elle Woods’ character (remember, played by Reese Witherspoon?). Rebecca is a high fashionista as you would expect and without much thinking reacts immediately to everything in a very girl next door sorta way. And the storyline in the movie unfolds very early on that she became a shop-a-holic ‘cause her parents were such savers (played by Joan Cusack and John Goodman). And since she didn’t have much as a child, when she became an adult and applied for credit cards, she was out of control. Okay I’ll buy that…at least that’s not too far fetched.

There were a few funny scenes like when she had to go on a business trip to Miami with her boss and very predictable love interest. He kinda looks like a Paul Rudd character with the puppy dog eyes. And ironically he’s got a British accent in the movie. But anyway there’s a scene where after a day of networking and schmoozing at a tradeshow, they’re out having a drink at what looks like Miami’s Espanola Way and her boss buys her a fan from a walking sales girl with a basket. Then he grabs Rebecca and they start dancing along with others on the street. She’s so left footed and goofy but that’s what makes her and the movie more adorable than totally unbelievable.

The overall lesson of the movie is good but has its shortcomings too. Like near the end, she has a “store sale” of all her clothing and at the end makes more than what she owes to the Debt Collector. I dunno about that message… that she made money from overspending? But I think the fact that she reconciles with her best friend and walks by Yves St. Laurent store without going in and buying anything is a predictable but right way to end it. At least the main take-away message to girls is that it’s not okay to use shopping and buying beyond your means as a crutch to fix any sorta depression. That’s my hope anyway. It was an amusing almost two hours but that was plenty long. I can’t really imagine a sequel.

I kinda wish the movie was set somewhere other than New York, like Raleigh.  New York is just so predictible. I think if Rebecca had a southern drawl or a North Carolinan accent, that would’ve made it even more real.

Category: Brandy's Special "Dish"