Shopgirl (2005)

Good but....

Shopgirl is one of those very good films that somehow leaves you wanting it to have been something better, something great, which it is not. It indeed had a chance to be a truly great film, save for a few glitches, most of them having to do with the screenplay, but opted for the true Lowest Common Denominator Hollywood flaw of `playing it safe'.
Where the film succeeds is that it is blatantly a middle-aged male fantasy film, with an average looking fiftysomething wealthy computer executive named Ray Porter's attempts to make a mistress out of a twentysomething `shopgirl' he meets and woos at her L.A. Saks Fifth Avenue department store counter. She sells high fashion formal gloves and the double-divorced Ray (Steve Martin) buys them and mails them to her apartment. The shopgirl, a wannabe artist from Vermont named Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes), is sort of involved with an awkward loser, amplifier salesman, and font designer named Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman, of Rushmore fame). From the first scene Danes and Schwartzman have together, at a laundromat, it's obvious they have real onscreen chemistry and are destined to be together. This is not a flaw, for most romances have this. The crux of the film is not will they end up together, but how will they end up together?
Danes shows that she is the best twentysomething actress around, and has the most potential since Gwyneth Paltrow became a star in the late 1990s. The film could get her an Oscar, but, even though the Academy looks down on comedies and comic actors, it is Schwartzman who deserves at least a nomination. If Danes is a younger Paltrow, then he is a younger John Cusack. As it is, though, Shopgirl is still one of the better films and romantic comedies you'll see. Yet- ah, to wish upon a....
September 17, 2008

Small but interesting

Did Steve Martin's novella by the same name come first? I think so. Now, it's this movie which is a little rumination on the choices we make. I think it's Martin's own story. He seems a little lonely. July 26, 2008

Romances contemporáneos

Comencé a ver un poco ya comenzada la pelicula, pero de inmediato me encanto la actuación de Claire Danes y, posteriormente las relaciones que se comienzan a dar entre los tres protagonistas. No me gustó el final que se da, pues queda demostrado que el amor igual existió y aunque la femina buscaba otro tipo de sentido a una relación amorosa, la cree encontrar pero recordando lo intenso y profundo de la primera seria relación que tiene. Steven Martin en sorprendente actuación y muy creible en su rol. April 19, 2008

A Very Touching Movie

I was boohooing by the end of this very moving film. Keep your tissues nearby. Steve Martin, who I just discovered actually wrote the novella upon which this movie was based, plays an older, very cold, very calculating man, who pursues and then uses a much younger, naive, lonely girl, strictly for her body. A younger, almost annoying, very weird artist also pursues the Shopgirl, but with very different motives.

What I loved about this movie is that it has a very happy ending, as the young lady finds true love and is able to move on from what could have been a shattering experience with Martin's character. I have always admired Ms. Danes and she has done a great job, as usual, in this movie. April 7, 2008

Bravo Steve Martin !!!!!

Some of us probably think that finding love would be easy in a city of millions but as this little gem of a movie points out, it doesn't matter and probably is much harder than in a town of 400 people. The backdrop for this film is a large city and the three characters of interest are people we can relate to or say we have met sometime in our lives.

The main character is an attractive but not beautiful young woman who came from a small town to the big city to explore her artistic talents in her spare time while supporting herself by working in a high end women's clothing store selling very expensive gloves. We see her go through the daily grind of working where she is not really happy, coming home to her empty apartment, and occasionally inspired to artistically create, but she battles mild depression and longs for a true loving and lasting relationship.

She meets two different men (almost at the same time) who offer her what she seeks. One man is her age, has interest in the arts as she does, is somewhat immature, and trying to find his own self while drifting in and out of her life. The other is a middle-aged and successful man who seems to have everything in life except for one most important thing.

Based on a novella written by Steve Martin (who co-stars as the third character), this is a wonderful love story with a both happy and bittersweet ending. There are some moments which are genuinely funny and some moments which are truly heartbreaking as we see when one of the characters fails to mature and loses what they seek most in life.

This definitely is a film which should not be labeled as a "chick flick" because it can be enjoyed equally by men and women and contains some valuable life lessons we can all learn from.










February 20, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...