I didn’t read Sophie Kinsella’s “Confessions of a Shopaholic” until late last year when a movie tie-in paperback edition landed on my desk.
Since the novel was first published in 2000, I figured it would be a hopelessly dated “Sex & the City” spin-off about single career gals wasting their salaries on designer clothes. But, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the book mixed standard chick-lit elements with a pretty scathing view of the way credit cards have fouled up the lives of upwardly mobile women.
Although the book was written and first published during turn-of-the-century boom times, the underlying message seemed scarily relevant in this recessionary era.
I didn’t have a chance to see the movie version of the Kinsella book when it opened and closed very quickly last winter.
I watched a pre-release DVD screener last night — the official release date is Tuesday — and it was easy to see why this film version of a very popular novel would bomb at the box-office. It’s a pretty terrible movie that trims back the wisest parts of the Kinsella book in favor of a standard pre-recession era “S&TC”-rip-off (down to hiring the costume designer of the iconic HBO show — Patricia Fields — whose work on the movie pushes too hard for funky eccentricity).
Director P.J. Hogan has been wandering in the wilderness since his last hit, “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” in 1997. His deft handling of the actors in that Julia Roberts comedy is nowhere in evidence in the shrill “Shopaholic.” The star, Isla Davis, is beautiful and talented, but the combination of her garish costuming and the director pushing her into countless over-sized physical comedy sequences kills any hope of centering the dated story on a charming and likeable heroine.
Hogan also pulls off the bizarre feat of wasting three wonderful character actors — John Lithgow, Joan Cusack and John Goodman — in poorly conceived bit roles.
Leading man Hugh Dancy is spared most of the embarrassment inflicted on the other players, but his editor character becomes so bland and so ignorant of what is really going on with the ‘shopaholic’ that he fades into the background. This is basically the same thing that happened to Dermot Mulroney in “My Best Friend’s Wedding” but there Hogan had Rupert Everett filling in the void with his memorable turn as Julia’s gay friend.
I felt bad for Sophie Kinsella as I squirmed my way through an adaptation that does a real disservice to her work.
