By Catherine Sodano
Do you speak Prada? If so, “Confessions of a Shopaholic” is definitely the movie for you. This movie had all the quintessential elements of a chick-flick: men, love, pocketbooks and heels. If you read the book that the movie is based on, however, you will be disappointed: the book far exceeds the movie.
In a corny plot, Isla Fischer plays Rebecca Bloomwood, an avid shopper that loves to spend money on clothes, jewelry, handbags and shoes. Her love affair with shopping quickly turns dangerous, and she finds herself having to face a collections agency that is chasing her down throughout the movie. Bloomwood is a journalist who only desires to write for Ellete Magazine, the premiere fashion magazine in the city, and settles for taking a job at a finance magazine as a platform to move up to Ellete.
In a twisted plot gone wrong, she falls in love with her editor, Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy). Dancy’s British accent alone was quite striking, but his acting skills unfortunately, were not.
The big secret that Bloomwood tries to keep throughout the film is the colossal amount of debt she finds herself in, and the many different ways she has attempted to dodge the collections agency from tracking her down to pay off her debts. It’s a bit hypocritical for someone who is so unwise monetarily has a job writing as a journalist for a finance magazine. As the story unfolds, so does her cover. It was about the story of a girl who was freshly out of college living in a small loft with her best friend and lands herself a wealthy entrepreneur, her editor. Bloomwood blows thousands of dollars on clothes and accessories, and eventually goes to Shop-aholics anonymous, and is comically joined by others who indulge in shopping as regularly as she did.
The movie is cute and merely resembles a less funny and less innovative “Legally Blonde,” but copied some of the themes of “Devil Wears Prada.” The acting was average and there was no deep emotion involved. The concept and notion of the film would have been clever if directed and written differently. There were a lot of unnecessary lines and instances in the movie that made one feel like they were watching a movie directed for little children. The movie wasn’t a complete mess, however, if you have a high tolerance for ultimate cheesy, poorly written chick-flicks, with corny humor, you may want to give it a shot, if not, the ten dollars spent on a movie ticket would be much better spent on the actual novel.