Shopgirl Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 21st, 2005
SHOPGIRL
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
SHOPGIRL is certainly two thirds of a fine film, but one of the three main characters isn't merely bad, he is gratingly awful. The character and the actor, who is badly miscast, is so insufferable that he leaves the audience in high anxiety as it fears the next fingers-across-a-blackboard moment when he will appear in the frame again.
The film's insufferable character, Jeremy, is played by Jason Schwartzman, an equally annoying actor who last starred in the abysmal I HEART HUCKABEES. If -- and this is a big "if" -- you are able to ignore both the character and the actor, the rest of the movie is bittersweet, romantic and quite touching.
Based on a novella by Steve Martin, the story concerns three lonely people. Ray Porter (Martin) is as sophisticated and fabulously wealthy as Jeremy is dirt poor and a complete slob. The bridge between these two male characters is played by Claire Danes, who had a high profile role as the female lead in TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES. This time she is the title character whose name is Mirabelle Buttersfield, a sad woman who looks bored standing at her counter in the women's glove department at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She stands day after day with her stoic smile, even if few customers drop by her station.
After meeting Jeremy in a LaunderLand and having some funny but awkward sex with him in her apartment, she finds Ray Porter, a rich purchaser of gloves he doesn't need, just as awkward, even though he's of an age where he shouldn't be. Awkwardness in the face of love and sex is one of the story's constant themes.
As Jeremy heads off for a long -- thank God! -- road trip with a band, the May-December romance between Mirabelle and Ray blossoms slowly and nicely. Ray, however, in a character that will remind you somewhat of Bill Murray's character in LOST IN TRANSLATION, has definite commitment issues. As Martin puts it in the narration, describing Ray about his feelings for Mirabelle, "he wanted part of her but not all of her." Ray is the kind of guy who stares wistfully at his lover but is unable to say sentences containing the word "love" in her presence.
I can use the word "love" easily. I loved Danes and Martin and their characters, but Schwartzman is just too much of a negative drag for me to be able to recommend the picture. Wait for video and hit the fast forward button the second Schwartzman gets even in the far periphery of the frame. Try to erase him and his character as thoroughly as you could get rid of an ugly spot on a photograph with an eraser in a photo editing program.
SHOPGIRL runs 1:44. It is rated R for "some sexual content and brief language" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, November 4, 2005. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
