Shopgirl
by Anand Tucker
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Actor: Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman, Sam Bottoms, Steve MartinDirector: Anand Tucker
Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
Writer: Steve Martin
Producer: Andrew Sugerman
Producer: Ashok Amritraj
Producer: Jon Jashni
Producer: Marcus Viscidi
Producer: Meredith Zamsky
Producer: Nick Hamson
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; Japanese (Original Language); French (Dubbed), Unknown; Spanish (Dubbed), Unknown
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 106 minutes
Published: 2006-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2006-04-25
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Touchstone
DVD Reviews of Shopgirl
DVD Review: Murky direction, slight screenplay, but a pitch-perfect ending
Summary: 3 Stars
Do you choose what outwardly seems to be the perfect relationship, even if it's built on lies, or do you choose what's very flawed but real? That's the rather large question facing Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes) in Shopgirl, a film that misses the mark in many ways but is still worth a viewing, particularly if you're a Danes fan.
And I've always liked her. Claire Danes strikes me as a very "honest," unpretentious actress. So I was chomping at the bit when I heard about this film. She did not disappoint. But Steve Martin and director Anand Tucker did, somewhat.
The script is based on Martin's 2001 novella. Martin also stars, which is fine. But it couldn't stop there. He is not only a character in the movie, he is the film's omniscient narrator. Not only does this confuse things somewhat, it is totally unnecessary. The narrator just telegraphs what we should be figuring out ourselves, adding nothing new, and the last bit of narration robs the ending of much of its impact. You feel like saying "Shaddup and let the movie play." Added to that is the fact that Martin reads in a stiff manner, as though his audience were a room of fourth-graders. Add to that the fact that Martin, apparently conscious of his advanced age, wears more face makeup than Claire Danes. Some critics have said he looks like a wax mannequin of himself, and he does.
Martin should have spent less time with his narration and eye-liner and more time fleshing out his own character. Because he is a cipher. Early in the film Martin the narrator asks us to ponder why Martin the character chose Mirabelle as the object for his affections. We expect an answer, but it never comes.
And the direction: it can be a bit heavy at times. There are a few too many shots where we pan slowly, oh so slowly, to the stars. As many others have observed, the music lays it on a bit thick, but rather than the score being wrong or intrusive, I think it was just overused. (When it works, it works very well, but the director seems to have relied on it as a crutch.) Also, the director makes too many obvious visual parallels between Mirabelle's situation with Ray Porter (Steve Martin) and Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman). The middle is not the clearest in structure or mood; reportedly Shopgirl was held from release for heavy reediting; some of the original cutting is present in the outtakes section. One segment was so condensed that a scene shows Danes in one nightshirt drawing when the phone rings and she rushes to it--in a different nightshirt! Clearly this "scene" was assembled from two other, unrelated scenes. It's done so deftly I had to watch several times before I noticed.
Okay, now for what works: Claire Danes. She gives a very layered, carefully-considered performance--she is a very perceptive actress, far better than she is often given credit for being. (Meryl Streep says she's her favorite--high praise in my book.) Somewhere in her gut I think Danes realized that Mirabelle can never be Ray's equal, so she creates a persona that Mirabelle puts on around him (perky, doting, not too intimate, always afraid of overstepping her "place" in his life while clearly wanting to go farther), and another for how she acts around Jeremy (more casual and more herself), another for how she is at work (bored and disengaged) and one at the end, where she has found some measure of self-confidence (this one is, well, self-confident, and clearly able to absorb and diffuse more hurt). It's a very well-thought out performance that the Oscar folks ignored. I feel bad for Danes...I don't know what else she could have done except bled on the set for this film.
Martin is Martin...not the "wild and crazy guy" (thank heavens, or I would have ejected this film after five minutes) but a very reserved, slightly charming but distant older gentleman. Jason Schwartzman is good as date-from-hell Jeremy, though he's so over-the-top that he's drawn maybe too broadly. But I guess the director had to set things up so we'd really empathize with *why* Mirabelle chooses an older gentleman who tells her early on he's not in this for the long haul, and not judge her harshly for what could seem like a cold, calculating, materialistic move. It's a fine line to walk.
And that brings me to what strangely affected me about this story. We've all seen movies before about pretty women and rich men who take care of them--Disney's Pretty Woman itself is a great example. Most of the time they have fairy tale endings and don't really deal with the relationship issues in any real way.
Shopgirl digs deeper. Neither Ray nor Mirabelle is sainted--each does things that made me wince. With him it was the fact that he picked a naive, wide-eyed girl to lavish his attention on, rather than, say, Mirabelle's catty coworker Lisa (played to perfection by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras). Lisa's the type who can take on any man, part him from his money, and then spit him out the other side without a second thought. Ray clearly isn't interested in her. Later in the film Ray reminds a heart-broken Mirabelle that "we had an agreement." But how could Ray possibly think that he could lavish attention and gifts on impressionable Mirabelle and not have her fall head-over-heels? At times Ray displays a coldness and a callousness that's repulsive, and it's to Martin's credit that he plays the character that way, without explanation or apology.
With her, I winced the first time she is in Ray's well-appointed house. He gives her a tour of the place that ends--naturally--in the bedroom. He goes to answer a phone call and when he returns she has completely stripped and is lying on the bed, ready for him, even though they barely know each other. And although she has her falling-outs with him, she continues to take his money and his gifts. It's a very complicated situtaion, and no one is blame-free.
But it's about so much more than "she's sleeping with him for presents/he's giving her presents for sex," as some critics have pegged it. There are less complicated ways for Porter to get a playmate, if that's what he really wants. And a scene where he rushes her to her doctor after she unwisely stops taking her anti-depressant medication and almost has a breakdown belies a depth to their relationship that goes beyond the mere sugar-daddy.
This is rare in an American comedy. I'd expect this sort of complexity, this grayness, in a French film say, but U.S. movies are usually more of the Pretty Woman sort--she's a whore who's really an angel, he's just a guy who needs someone sweet to get him back in touch with himself. But as Steve Martin correctly observes in the featurette that accompanies this DVD, people change, but not completely. They're still basically the same. There is a moment, after Ray has offhandedly hurt Mirabelle for the umpteenth time, where she drops her chirpy persona, looks into his eyes and speaks to him in a manner we haven't heard her use before: "Ray, why don't you love me?" It's a heart-breaking scene. Indeed, we want to know the same thing, even as we understand, and have understood throughout the movie, the simple thing she will not admit to herself--that he never will love her, not fully, not the way she wants, even though it's obvious he needs her for more than just sex.
And that's one reason this film worked so well. It treats its subject realistically. Jeremy changes by the end, but not completely. He's still Jeremy, just a more refined version. Mirabelle too changes, and again it's very believable. Does Ray Porter change? That's something I'm not sure about. Martin seems to want us to think he does, at least to a degree. But when he finally confesses his feelings, I'm not sure if we should believe him. Once before he hurt her, she took him back, and he went about his callousness again. He didn't seem to learn from the first experience. Why should we believe he learned anything this time?
And that brings us to that last scene, which I shant reveal (and Amazon doesn't permit spoilers anyhow). I will say, however, it's that rare thing in movies, a perfect ending, with every line having wonderful subtext. Without revealing anything, just notice how she expertly puts him in his place when he asks her if she received his birthday gift. It's a great moment. Kudos to producer Ashok Amritraj for getting the film made without a tacked-on hollow happy ending.
Ultimately Shopgirl left me with quite an ache even as I was frustrated by a certain emotional vacuum at the same time. I expected a smart, breezy comedy, in maybe the Mike Nichols/Elaine May vein. I got a film with characters I sometimes loved, sometimes hated, sometimes identified with, sometimes didn't. It left me feeling a bit empty, as I saw Ray Porter pass on what might have been a genuine shot at happiness for empty, passionless sex (by his own reckoning) with an old fling, played soullessly by Rebecca Pidgeon. Happiness is so elusive that it really hurts to see it thrown away, especially if you're not sure the character who threw it away has actually learned anything. But that's what the ending had to be.
Shopgirl is not a great film. You could even argue it's not a very good film. Yet it stays with you* because there aren't many mainstream movies like this--relentlessly honest, and about the little things in life that, in the end, matter so much. Although it could have been better, it would have been hard for it to be more unique, and I'm willing to overlook a lot because of that.
The DVD looks great, with a crisp image, bold brights and dark darks, and the 25-minute making-of supplement is very enjoyable. There's no trailer, and Tucker's self-congratulatory commentary ("This is a really great scene coming up!" "I love this part!") grates. He also talks a better film than he directs, seeing all sorts of relationships that aren't obvious from a cold viewing. Mostly, Shopgirl is worthwhile for Claire Danes. I hope this is the beginning of a career that kicks into high gear.
*Read Roger Ebert's review to see just how much the movie affected him!
Description of Shopgirl
SHOPGIRL - DVD MovieAny fan of Steve Martin's 2000 novella will enjoy this pitch-perfect adaptation, which glowingly captures the bittersweet tones of a May-December romance. Martin wrote the screenplay and stars as Ray Porter, a button-down 50-something executive who reaches out to a much younger woman as a Los Angeles playmate. The book and movie, though, are both primarily about Mirabelle (Claire Danes), a 20-something with a pile of promises, debt, and depression, as she fades away into a slow corner of Saks selling unneeded formal gloves. She's a wisp of a person, with a cat who doesn?t love her, and when she finds a suitor, it's Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), a scruffy artist who babbles on about speakers. When the gentlemanly Porter calls, his appearance in her life begins to make her whole. It also immediately sets her up for sadness--Ray thinks of Mirabella as a precious outlet for sex, while Mirabelle, very mistakenly, sees Ray as a potential lifelong mate. Martin deftly turns the novella's prose into dialogue, allowing the movie to feel full-bodied, and the film also works as a comedy, as we witness Jeremy's growth on the road with a rock band. Schwartzman would walk away with film if not for the perfectly cast leads: Martin does another smart turn away from his wild-and-crazy moniker, Danes has never been better in an Oscar-worthy performance, and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras aces her role as a hot-to-trot co-worker of Mirabelle's. Whoever's decision to have Martin be the omnipresent narrator, though, should be penalized, as it?s confusing to have him in two roles, and the information is pretty useless, even robbing the film of a final grace note. --Doug Thomas
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