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Confessions of a Shopaholic Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG (for some mild language and thematic elements) Genre: Comedy Theater release: February 13, 2009 by Disney Directed by: PJ Horgan Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes Cast: Isla Fisher (Rebecca Bloomwood), Hugh Dancy (Luke Brandon), Kristin Scott Thomas (Alette Naylor), Joan Cusack (Jane Bloomwood), John Goodman (Graham Bloomwood) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Gleefully eviscerating Sophie Kinsella's bestselling novel of the same name, Confessions of a Shopaholic gamely declares itself recession-proof, wrapping done-to-death chick flick clichés in a morality tale that's blissfully amoral.

Journalist Rebecca Bloomwood, played by corkscrew-curled, pert-faced Isla Fisher, has racked up an impressive $16,000 in consumer debt, thanks to her penchant for designer labels and the call of the brand spanking new. Her wardrobe befits the fashion writer she dreams of becoming, but her puny salary can't keep up, and now the debt collectors have come a-calling. Ever the optimist, Becky hides her bills in a drawer and keeps on stalking sample sales in the hopes that her wardrobe will help her win a coveted position as a fashion writer for a top magazine.

Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood

Becky has set her sights on Alette, a Vogue-style publication, and decides to get her foot in the publisher's door by interviewing for a position at Alette's dowdy sister magazine Smart Savings. Despite her complete lack of experience in finance, Becky charms Smart Savings's editor-in-chief Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy), a bashfully rumpled pretty boy with the sexiest of English accents, and begins serving up common-sense advice on financial matters—advice that she certainly isn't following in her real life.

Fisher plays Becky as a bird-of-paradise in a sea of gray executives, and it's impossible to avoid falling for her. At every turn Fisher's lively performance is full of comic surprises, and she can fill her soft brown eyes with liquid contrition on an as-needed basis. When she tells the first lie of the film, to get a debt collector off the phone, the movie positions her dishonesty as just a quirk in her cutely vivacious personality.

But Becky doesn't just lie to the debt collectors. She lies to her parents, her roommate, her boss, and to random people on the street. She tells a lie in almost every scene. Even in the most innocuous of situations lies spring easily to her lips, such as her declaration in a job interview that she speaks Finnish. Later in the film, Becky compounds her lie with a creative elaboration, and she pulls it off with such moxie that she seems a hero for her quick-witted triumph.

Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Becky's parents

Not that the film leaves Becky off the hook entirely. Her lies do catch up with her, as can be expected, but only to a point. Yet for all her confessions, this shopaholic is never called to anything approaching repentance. Her essential nature remains unchanged because the film only pays lip service to its critique of the out-of-control consumerism that landed Becky in such trouble.

What director PJ Horgan (Muriel's Wedding) fails to understand is that Becky's lies didn't begin with her first debt collector dodge. Becky's fatal flaw isn't that she's a shopaholic, it's that she's a liar to her core, and shopping is just one manifestation of her besetting sin. She didn't accumulate her debt on an education or basic human needs. She blew 16 grand at the toniest boutiques in New York City to build an image for herself that had no basis in the reality of her life.

Becky's covetousness leads to gluttony and lies in a cascade of sin that the movie dresses up as mere comedic foibles. But the movie rewards her as a dreamer who deserves the image she lied to create. Kinsella's book, fairy tale though it is, at least contained a critique of Becky's hedonism and self-centeredness. The movie strips out all the depth of the book and replaces it with slow motion shots of Becky striding down the New York City streets in yet another rock 'em sock 'em outfit.

Becky charms editor Luke (Hugh Dancy)

Shopaholic's unironic celebration of Becky's way of life leaves an extremely bad taste in the mouth of anyone who has been fallen prey to the temptations of conspicuous consumption. There are too many women like Becky out there, drowning in debt because Sex and the City taught them that ordinary women wear $400 shoes. Seeing Becky's delicious clothing (courtesy of SATC stylist Patricia Field) isn't likely to inspire reflection or repentance—particularly since they can surf their way over to Bluefly.com and buy Becky's wardrobe. Even on sale, the price tags are high, but Becky says that's what credit cards are for.

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