《一个购物狂的自白》的英文影评

《一个购物狂的自白》的英文影评

It has been a long time since I came as close to walking out of a movie as I did with Confessions of a Shopaholic. Not only did I find this production to be irritating, unfunny, and lacking in entertainment value, but I found its underlying slavishness to a culture of consumption to be morally repugnant. Some of this, I realize, is a matter of timing, but the distributor has itself to blame for that. What company in its right mind would release a movie like this - one that lauds brand names and profligate spending - in a time when so many people are really hurting? Are the expressions of excess displayed in this movie a means of escape or an instrument to salt the wounds of some who spent hard-earned dollars to see this?

My hatred of this movie runs true and deep. It's not a harmless fairy tale or a carefree screwball comedy. It's a bold and shameless expression of a warped and rotted "me first" culture in which people spend beyond their means then turn around and call themselves victims. Who is the villain in this movie? A debt collector, not the thoughtless bimbo who we're supposed to be rooting for. I'm sure there will be audience members who identify with Isla Fisher's bubble-brained Rebecca Bloomwood. They won't see her as a symptom of a societal disease. For my part, I found her to be entirely unsympathetic and having to spend nearly two hours watching her misadventures is a torturous experience. Many scenes take place on New York City sidewalks. On each occasion, I could not contain the never-to-be-realized hope that a runaway taxi would take her out.

Some will doubtless argue that I'm taking the movie too seriously. It is, after all, intended to be a comedy with a side dish of romance. Besides, isn't the point that Rebecca is redeemed by paying off her debts, re-connecting with her parents, and turning her back on her shopaholic ways? The problem is that the movie, with its broad, clumsy humor, doesn't have a pratfall, sight gag, or double entendre worth a feeble chuckle and the romance is flat. As for Rebecca's redemption - it's not hard-won. The "consequences" she faces are obscenely minor. She doesn't lose her home or face the humiliation of standing in a line to get unemployment benefits. And the movie continues to name-drop Prada, Gucci, and others as if they represent the Holy Grail of purchasing power. That, I suppose, is the purchasing power of product placement. It's almost scary that the filmmakers don't see the hypocrisy, and almost as frightening that many in the audience will dismiss it.

On a high level, Confessions of a Shopaholic is trying to fuse The Devil Wears Prada with Legally Blonde, but it lacks the darkly satirical edge of the former and the frothy innocence of the latter. It's a misbegotten offspring that sticks to the bottom of the shoe with the tenacity and stench of a dog turd. I expected more from P.J. Hogan, whose previous features include the heartfelt Muriel's Wedding and the delicious My Best Friend's Wedding. The fact that this movie is based on a pair of books may be an excuse, but it's not a good one.

Rebecca Bloomwood, a journalist at a failing magazine, is obsessed with buying clothing. Wearing it is a secondary concern. It's the process of shopping that provides her with orgasmic shivers. When her interview to write for a fashion magazine fails and her current job is downsized into nothing, she finds herself without a means to pay off her mounting credit card bills. Through a