This fun movie will make you feel the joy and disaster of shopping: Confessions of a Shopaholic
I was looking for something to freshen my mind with something that's different.
That's how I came across Confessions of a Shopaholic. It's 2 liner caught my attention: "A woman addicted to shopping goes in deep debt. To repay, she lands a job in a finance magazine to write about saving money". This such an ironic situation and something totally unexpected to get a person struggling with finance to educate others about finance.
The movie begin's with Rebecca Bloomwood's childhood where she's a girl and watches other big girls shop whatever they want instead if having to buy whatever their mother buys them.
The movie does a narration of what's going inside her head and how she dreams to shop as much as she wants once she grows up. While the narration continues, the movie cuts to present time when she is living her dream! Shopping whatever she wants, as many times as she wants.
The whole execution of first 5-7 minutes is a masterpiece in script writing with instant curiosity loop closure, creating flow of the story and feeling the funniness of the movie right in the beginning.
The movie then continues on her adventure, how she ends in big pile of debt, looses her existing job and how she accidentally lands job in a finance magazine.
And the fun element keeps adding when her friend makes her watch a documentary on how to control the urge to shop, with her different ways to escape the debt collector and with the chaos she creates with her speech inside "shopaholic" support group.
The interesting thing about the movie was how it ties the plot using the clues left earlier. One such example is where she's running late for an interview but still stops in between to buy a green scarf, and this scarf then later becomes her pen name in the finance magazine! There are other such instances as well which all together create a feeling of satisfaction in the movie.
And the script, acting and the direction captures very well on what goes into the being of people who love shopping.
For me, shopping is a draining task. I do not enjoy it at all. And it's overwhelming as well. But this movie shows how it's the opposite for people like Rebecca. They enjoy shopping. It energises them. They thrive while shopping (of course only in terms of feeling because clearly financially it can spiral out of control).
This makes it a good movie to watch, especially for people who hate shopping to understand the other perspective. And this is a good movie to watch for shopping lovers to see themselves mirrored, feel relatable and also on learning potential financial implications of impulsive shopping (quite few heavy words altogether but hey, we are talking about heavy consequences here 🤷🏼♂️).
The director of the movie does a fantastic job in keeping the viewers engaged, delivering powerful moments very well, and adding comedy elements throughout.
The movie ranges between fun, comedy, serious and transformation points smoothly is a solid 9.5/10.
The lead actress, Isla Fisher did wonderful work in delivering the role which appeared believable. So did Hugh Dancy, the lead actor and the guy who hired Isla's character, Rebecca in the magazine.
The scriptwriting is fantastic, engaging and super fun and so is the direction.
Kudos to everyone who created this artpiece!
It's a movie that I found worth watching 2nd time.
Until next time,
Pratyush Goel