After weeks of counting down last night was the night! I got to see Confessions of a Shopaholic in full technicolour! Isla Fisher was beautiful, stylish, hilarious and adorable (with tumbling locks I could but dream of). Hugh Dancy was hot stuff. There was a big snog at the end and lots of fabulous clothes. But I was left... cold. More than cold. I was left... depressed.
The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, so masterfully written by Sophie Kinsella, was something I one hundred per cent related to. In the book Becky Bloomwood told herself that every purchase was an 'investment', just as I do. She got stuck against shop windows on Oxford Street, physically unable to leave until she owned that pair of shoes, just as I do. She got herself into silly scrapes over her pitiful financial situation, just as I do.
Becky Bloomwood from the book is my frivolous, silly, outrageous, irresponsible, magpie side personified. She is everything I would be if my sensible and conscientious side didn't step in at the right moment.
Basically she is me, when I'm drunk. (Never set me on shops when I've had a few, I'd have no money left.)
However, despite her frivolity, Becky is still one feisty lady. Someone with talent, someone who stood up for herself, someone who deserves respect.
Becky Bloomwood in the film however was so childlike, so wide-eyed, so namby bamby. There was no fight in her. Nothing that commanded me to like her (apart from the hair). And the scrapes she got into were so farcical and unrealistic they were almost cartoon-like. I appreciate with a film like Shopaholic you must suspend your disbelief, but there is only so far you can go before it becomes plain ridiculous and you can no longer relate to the character. The entire film was over edited too. There was no build up to the major scenes, no suspense to the final kiss or the fight with the best friend or any of the major turning points of the film. This, coupled with the depth-less archetypal characters, meant you just didn't care.
Then there is the whole anti-consumerism message. In the current economic climate a film like this can be taken as a sensible warning against mass consumption (due to the mess Becky gets into over her ridiculous debt). However, this leaves a rather nasty taste in the mouth when there is SO much product placement in the film, it's a veritable feast of designer goodies. The bright colours and beautiful things are certainly a joy of the film as well as a downfall. I very much want most of Miss Bloomwood's wardrobe, not to mention Hugh Dancy on my arm.
However, I just don't feel the film really captured the true compulsion of what it is to be shopping-obsessed like the book did. It was portrayed as some kind of out-of-control frenzy, that women in shoe shops were like sharks at bleeding meat. This is not the case, my shopping obsession is very controlled, it's something I linger over, organise and re-organise, obsess over constantly. I don't just walk into a shop or see a Sale sign and lose all rationale... ok, perhaps that can be debated but I certainly don't lose it to the extremity displayed in the film. Usually I, having scoured many fashion magazines, have decided on my purchase way before I even step into the shop. It's a way of constructing my identity, where was Becky's construction of identity through shopping?
And she gave up that shopping habit way too easily. Just because she found a nice boyfriend and good job suddenly nice dresses no longer mattered to her? And the suggestion that shopping was the root of all her evils? Pah!
I'm sorry to say it, but I found Confessions of a Shopaholic over-indulgent, contrived, contradictory and simplistic.
However on the way in I did get a free bright pink nails inc nail varnish. Worth a tenner that. Nice.
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