Film Reviews

Shopgirl

• Rating:
• Director: Anand Tucker
• Starring: Claire Danes
• Details: US, 104mins, 15s.

Aspiring artist Mirabelle Buttersfield (Danes) lives a lonely life with her cat, selling gloves in a high-priced LA department store to pay off her student loans. Popping anti-depressants to keep a smile on her face, Mirabelle's forlorn life changes when romance comes in the form of bubbly and eccentric logo designer Jeremy (Schwartzman). But the pair's brief fling fizzles out when Mirabelle is wooed by wealthy divorcee Ray Porter (Martin); despite suspecting his heart isn't in the relationship, Mirabelle can't help falling in love with him. It's left to Jeremy to win her back.
A pattern starts to emerge: talented actors star in crap to finance their own, infinitely better, projects. John Cusack starred in Con Air to make Grosse Point Blank (ditto for America's Sweethearts and High Fidelity) and here Shopgirl sees Martin adapt his own novella after the rank-rotten Cheaper by the Dozen 2. Martin, no stranger to a serious turn (his part in The Spanish Prisoner was worthy of note), really enjoys playing the straight guy after so many kooky roles and leaves the zaniness to the younger Schwartzman. Schwartzman, ironically, takes the ball and runs with it, almost stealing the show from under Martin's nose with his loose, near ad-lib performance, while the understated Danes confidently holds centre stage as the lonely girl in the big city. Comparisons to Lost In Translation have already begun to emerge, with parallels drawn between Martin and Bill Murray's portrayals as lonely businessmen attracted to younger women, the sombre pacing of the two films and the 'one girl in all this madness' theme, but it would be unfair to lump them in the same bracket as Shopgirl contains a lot more humour than its supposed counterpart. Director Tucker takes a back seat to the characters and only sticks his neck out with some beautifully crafted shots; the camera pulling out of Danes' sleeping body, through the sky-light until the window slowly dissolves into the night sky, being the highlight.

Review by Gavin Burke