Shop to you drop. It wasn’t all that long ago that many of us had that mantra, and would trek over to the mall to buy a lot of things we really didn’t need but wanted nonetheless or even worse, couldn’t afford. Then game the economic meltdown, which has effected us all. It is against this backdrop that the film Confessions of a Shopaholic was released which, while played as a comedy and to extremes, contains some lessons we may all benefit from. However, despite the lessons and social commentary contained therein, does it work as a film?
Film
Confessions of a Shopaholic stars Isla Fisher as Rebecca Bloomwood, a magazine writer in New York who can’t seem to stop shopping, running up incredible debt on all of her credit cards. Eventually, we all have our limit and hers occurs when she has maxed out her credit cards, all 21 of them. She is so addicted to shopping that she continues to lust after more clothing and trinkets even after she loses her job. Desperate for money, she applies for a job at what she thinks is her dream job, Alette, a fashion magazine as well as a financial magazine, Successful Saving, which is having some financial issues of her own.
On her way to an interview, she sees a green scarf in the window of a store and quite naturally, has to have it. However, she is 20 bucks short, and is not able to purchase it until she is able to con the $20 out of a nice gentleman with an English accent she sees at a hot dog cart, claiming that she desperately need the money to buy the scarf for a sick aunt. Rebecca is later surprised to encounter this same man when she arrives at Successful Saving for her interview as he is none other than Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy) the managing editor hired to turn the magazine around.
As Luke is somewhat smitten by Rebecca, he hires her on a trial basis and tasks her with writing an article dealing with thrift. Even though she uses Google as her research vehicle, she wows Luke with an article using her shopping experience and terminology and she is hired for a regular monthly columnwhere she is known as the Girl With the Green Scarf. However, Rebecca is soon being tracked down by a debt collector who is trying to recover the over $9,000 she owes his client. He brakes every law I can think of in his underhanded collection tactics, eventually tracking her down to the magazine where he embarrasses her on national TV. Will that experience ruin her career? Her budding relationship with Luke? I guess you will have to see the film to find out.
Confessions of a Shopaholic is a rather formulaic film. While the film consists of rather light fare, it does contain more than a few laughs, which in today’s economic climate, is a good thing. I just wish it had more of them and a more imaginative screenplay. Recommended as a rental only.
Video
There is a lot to like about the look of Confessions of a Shopaholic on Blu-ray. The film features a very nice and natural looking color palette with good skin tones and deep and stable blacks. The film’s color palette as one would expect given the film’s subject matter, features many bright and bold colors across the entire color spectrum which really pop off the screen. However, the film falls a bit short in two critical areas, clarity and detail. Despite the deep blacks, the film lacks the depth of the best looking films, due to its slightly below average level of clarity.
The film also falls a bit short in the level of detail as the film has a bit of a soft look. Clarity and detail go hand in hand to produce an image of great depth and both are lacking here. Don’t get me wrong, this is a bright and colorful film that many will no doubt find appealing. However, its general softness and mediocre level of detail left me wanting just a bit more than is delivered here.
Audio
While there is a good bit to like about the audio design on this release, it is more of a hit or miss proposition than the video. For a comedy, the surrounds are fairly actively engaged during parts of the film. However, they are primarily engaged with music rather than room ambiance. During the sequences with music accompaniment, you are provided with a nice immersive sound experience, albeit, a little different than I would have preferred. In those scenes without the musical accompaniment, the sound is a bit front heavy, as one would expect with a light hearted comedy.
The dialogue track is also well recorded and well placed in the sound mix and always intelligible which is important for a comedy for obvious reasons. While the overall dynamics of the audio presentation is decent, I found the overall quality of the audio to be a bit below expectations, sounding a bit harsh and thin compared to most recent lossless encodes I have heard. I found the audio here to be a bit fatiguing to listen to at reference levels. This is one film that I would suggest you experience at lower volume levels. Given that there is nary a gun shot or explosion here, I don’t think you will be missing anything by doing so and will actually enjoy the movie a bit more.
Special Features
Out the outset, I should report that I had some troubles reviewing the extras on this release. I reviewed the disc using the Panasonic BD55 Blu-ray player. I had never encountered any issues with any discs with this player before this title. While I could watch one of the extras without problems, if I tried to watch another, the player would freeze up. It would require me to boot up the disc again by accessing the Top Menu. I had to do this each and every time I wanted to watch more than one extra at a time. As you can imagine, it got real annoying real fast. This is probably an issue that I can clear up by downloading the latest firmware upgrade for the player which I hope to get around to real soon. You may not encounter this issue with your player if it is different than mine. Hopefully you will not encounter this abnormality. The actual film played flawlessly however.
This release comes equipped with a digital copy that is compatible with both Macs and PCs but is not BD-Live enabled. The extras include 4 deleted scenes which are presented in full HD as well as a blooper reel presented in standard definition.
The extras include three music videos, consisting of Stuck With Each Other with Shontelle featuring Akon, Accessory by Jordyn Taylor and Takes Time to Love by Trey Songz. The remainder of the extras consist of 6 short featurettes which vary from about 2 to 3 minutes in length each so it shouldn’t take you all that long to check them out. All are presented in HD and look quite good. Included is Wardrobe by Patricia Field, where award winning costumer designer Patricia Field takes you behind the scenes in her wardrobe design for the film.
Next is Temple of Shopping which takes you behind the scenes at Henri Bendel’s in New York as they transform the interior of the store for the film. Next is The Green Scarf where Patricia Field discusses how she created the green scarf featured so prominently in the film. Next up is New York’s Fashion Central which discusses shopping in New York. Sample Sale Madness takes you very briefly behind the scenes of the shooting of this scene. Finally, Window Shopping takes you to the store fronts at 71st and Madison where the scenes with the storefront mannequins were shot with live actors which were eventually replaced in the film with CGI mannequins.
Frankly, I didn’t find the extras to be all that interesting. It didn’t take long, for example, to see why the deleted scenes were dropped. The blooper reel isn’t all that funny and the featurettes are all very short and not very informative. Perhaps you will feel differently.
Final Thoughts
While falling a good bit short of reference in the audio as well as the video departments, Confessions of a Shopaholic is a lighthearted good natured film that has more than a few laughs. It is a perfect film for a Saturday night get together with your significant other or the entire family, provided you aren’t expecting too much. Recommended as a rental only.
Confessions of a Shopaholic | Into the Blu great review! thank you.