Film Review: Confessions of a Shopaholic

I've seen this movie's preview trailer months ago and thought it looked very funny, but never thought or planned to see it. I've never read the Shopaholic novels even though I've heard of them and seen the books in book stores (just never read it...perhaps now I will after seeing this movie), until one day, one of my older sisters highly recommended I see it. She told me it was the best movie she's seen in a long time...and that's very rare for her to say that about a movie that she likes/loves the most. She also told me that it was worth the money. So I said, ok, I'll watch it. And I did recently. I went to see it with my Mom and we were pleasantly surprised at how awesome, so much fun, very funny, cute, and entertaining this movie was.


Anyways, here's my full review of...

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009)

Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman




Watch the trailer below:

[source: jeu2wod0]

[Warning! ... for those who haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled...]

I thought this movie was really great. I didn't expect to have loved and enjoyed watching it. It was hilarious and I never laughed so hard in a movie like this in a while. This movie was like a combination of both Legally Blonde (in terms of funny) and The Devil Wears Prada (in terms of fashion)...both very good movies (and 2 of my favorite films to watch on my dvd collection), I might add. This one though was even more funny, awesome, and quite different than those two on its own. I'm not a shopaholic of clothes like Rebecca Bloomwood was in the movie, but with other things that I love to shop...I can totally relate to what she was going through. I must say, the main character of this film, Rebecca (Becky) Bloomwood was brilliantly and hilariously portrayed by Isla Fisher. Not too mention, she looked pretty good too. This was the only second third one of her movies that I've seen her in (Definitely, Maybe and Wedding Crashers were the other two). I thought she was so great and so funny in this one. I loved and enjoyed all her performances/scenes (and many hilarious facial expressions only Isla Fisher could have done best. She was simply amazing, cute, adorable, and so funny as Rebecca Bloomwood) in this film as does the rest of the cast such as Joan Cusack and John Goodman, who played her parents (Jane and Graham Bloomwood) were hilarious, lol. Hugh Dancy was dashing and handsome in this film as Luke Brandon, Becky's boss at Successful Savings Magazine. The story was great (of course, adapted from Sophie Kinsella's Shopaholic series, which I must admit I've never read prior to watching this movie even now as I write this review, lol). The visuals were very pretty and colorful esp. when you look at those costumes/designer clothes that Becky wore throughout the movie. The direction was pretty good as well. The music (and its main score) throughout the movie (all the fun, catchy songs used such as Blue Jeans by Jessie James, Uncontrollable by Adrienne Bailon, Calling You by Kat DeLuna, Rehab by Amy Whinehouse, Takes Time To Love by Trey Songz, and Bad Girl by The Pussycat Dolls to name a some) were just perfect and fits so well in every scene...even her ringtone, Rich Girl by Gwen Stephani totally complemented her shopaholic personality, lol. The location in New York City (I love NYC! I've been there, so I definitely can identify the city and its famous shopping stores with its equally famous designer brands) was exquisite makes me want to be there and shop (me and my sister certainly did when we were visiting NYC a few years back...just mostly window shopping though as they're pretty expensive over there, lol)

There were so many great and funny scenes I loved and enjoyed watching from this movie that I laughed a lot from beginning to end. I'll list them below....the ones that were fresh and I can remember from memory, anyway.


My Favorite Scenes

• The opening scene where Becky was shopping and she felt good, but when she found out about her excessive shopping bills...she wouldn't look at them and tried to ignore them, haha...
• The clearance sale scene where everyone (including Rebecca) was in line and they've gone crazy just for the clearance sale, and she was trying to stay "strong and frugal" ... so she just took the gloves and said out loud, "I'll buy these and these alone." But then noticed the red pucci boots on a 50% sale and got into a fight with another shopper for it, lmao!
• The scene where Becky was shopping for a nice green scarf at the beginning for a job interview and her credit cards maxed out and were declined, lol. She was short $20 and she told the sales lady to try again, but she told her that it was, "really decline." She said asked her to hold the green scarf for her, but the sales lady said something like, "sorry we don't hold sale items," lol.
• The first time she met Luke (her future boss at Successful Savings Magazine) at a hotdog stand was so funny she was trying to get a $20 cash back, lol.
• The scene where she (with her friend Suze...they were drunk from drinking margaritas, haha!) mailed her 2 letters in the wrong addresses (the envelope's color she used was pink yet lavender...reminded me of Elle Woods' pink stationary she used for her resume in Legally Blonde, lol) and she tried to get the wrong one from Allete magazine that she so wanted to worked for. She mixed up sending the letters in the wrong company. She wanted to work at an elite fashion magazine called Allete, but ended up at a financial Magazine, lol.
• The brief lil' scene where she got caught by Luke (her boss) typing “good angles on APRs” into Google and she said, "Yes, I googled. Am I fired?" was so funny.
  
  
• The board meeting scene where she showed up in the middle of the meeting and sat down with her chair spinning (making a squicky sound, lol) and her taking out her notebook and nonchalantly sharpening her pencil (with a noisy sharpener) loud enough for everyone to hear and to stare at her...and she just had this, "oh" expression on her face and make a blow sound of her sharpened pencil, haha!
• Becky's job interview at Successful Savings scene where she completely embarrassed herself in front of her future new boss...one of the funniest parts when she found out that Luke was the one who was to be interviewing her. Upon her surprise of seeing him, she had thrown away outside his office the green scarf she bought that he lend her money for and saw her from in the street, but his secretary/assistant Hayley saw it and give it back to her in Luke's presence during the interview, haha...then, when Luke asked her about her resume and she mentioned that she speaks, "Finnish." She avoided answering his question (as she doesn't speaking the language, lol). So, she suddenly pointed (pretended to be frightened, hahaha!) and kept looking at the life-size billboard poster of a half-naked guy model outside the glass window of his office, behind him as his desk was facing her, she was facing him and that half-naked model guy billboard behind him kept distracting her. LMAO! I thought that was hilarious...and she totally, and completely embarrassed herself esp. when she was leaving his office and accidentally hit herself through his glass door, haha! Awesomely funny scene!
• all the scenes where the debt collector, Derek Smeath kept following her and she created a funny voice ringtone just for him: “Do not answer this call. It's Derek Smeath!” lol.
• When she went to a shopaholic anonymous counseling (as her best friend, Suze asked her to do so as a favor to do something about her bad habits of shopping and start saving...), but she wouldn't follow or that she'd be in denial just like all the other shopaholic addicts, lol. They were so funny when they were confessing their shopping addictions.
• There was another scene where one of them who was telling everyone to not shop and follow with the rules of shopaholic anonymous, but she was secretly on a shopping spree herself and Becky caught her...she was gasping of surprised when Becky saw her at a department store shopping those expensive designer clothes that she was preaching the others to stop buying/shopping, haha....and she had the nerve to tell Becky, “YOU! It was all your fault!” lol...

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• When Becky and Luke went to Miami and danced together. Her fan dancing scene was hilarious esp. when she kept hitting him with her fan, haha.
• The charity ball/restaurant scene where she was mistaken for a waitress (well, her outfit was kinda similar to the actual waitresses, so the chef mistaken her for one) was funny, lol...but Luke saved her from embarrassing herself further. That was nice of him.
• the elevator scene with Becky and Derek Smeath, the debt collector who was looking for her at her work was hilarious as she was trying to avoid him...yet she called him, but hung up just before he can answer...but he was quick to say, “elevators, good thing there's re-dial,” lol...so when he started to call her back...her phone rang loudly with the special voice ringtone she used for him, "do not answer this call. It's Derek Smeath!" haha...she got scared and run fast to Luke's office's to hide from him. Btw, she told her boss Luke that he was her ex-boyfriend who was stalking her, lol. Good cover, Becky, haha...
• The scenes where she was desperate to shop for a new clothes or a nice designer dress to wear for her tv debut interview as the “girl in a green scarf” columnist/writer and when she was exposed on national television (with her parents and best friend Suzie and her boyfriend Tarkie were watching her LIVE, lol) and Derek Smeath was in the audience who exposed her debt problems/lies, was hilarious.
• When she auctioned all her designer clothes, she paid Derek Smeath in loads of change in pennies and in those penny jars, instead of a check or cash to get back at him for exposing on TV, lol.
• Her dad's wild dancing in the end credits explains her hilarious wild dancing at the Miami club scene, lol...

And many more...!

Those, clearly, were my favorite scenes from this film as they were the ones I remembered the most and I can't help but laugh a lot every time I think or remember those scenes, lol.

All the scenes I've listed ^, made me laughed a lot. I barely could think of a least favorite scene(s) to list here. There were probably a few, but the many great scenes outweighs the few bad ones. This movie was just awesome for words and I just loved and enjoyed watching it.

Overall, this was a fun, lighthearted, hilarious (lots of LOL!), romantic, and entertaining movie to watch. As previously stated here, I loved and enjoyed this movie (my Mom did too as does my sister who recommended us to see this movie did as well. Not too mention, we are already looking forward to getting this movie on DVD, lol). So, if you happen to be reading this review and you haven't seen it...sorry for the spoilers, lol...but don't say I didn't warn you, just before reading this. If you already have read this far and don't mind spoilers...I highly recommend you see this movie! It's worth the money and worth watching. Go see it!

My Confessions of a Shopaholic Film Rating: ! (10/10; A+)