Shopgirl
Written by Steve Martin
Directed by Anand Tucker
Touchstone
2005
Rating:


Steve Martin published his novella "Shopgirl" in 2001, but the film version from director Anand Tucker ("Hilary and Jackie") comes on the heels of "Lost in Translation," which shares "Shopgirl's" central storyline: a young woman and an older man fill their hollowness with each other in a strange city. Tucker's "Shopgirl" replaces "Translation's" Tokyo with Los Angeles and adds a third would-be paramour to create a love triangle, but it loses the sensitive existential ennui and sense of longing of Sofia Coppola's film, resulting in a movie's that's as empty as the characters.

Claire Danes plays Mirabelle Buttersfield, a Vermont transplant working in Saks Fifth Avenue selling the kind of gloves that women don't really wear anymore. She longs for more, according to Martin's grating "omniscient" narration, but she does little to actually obtain it besides drawing two charcoal pictures per year. Mirabelle meets Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) at a laundry mat, but after a couple of dates it becomes clear that Jeremy is a callous narcissist. Schwartzman, in the film's only magnetic performance, makes Jeremy more endearing than he should be, turning Jeremy's self-absorption into something childlike, but there's no denying that Jeremy is the kind of guy who, if this weren't a movie, no sane woman would consider a long-term companion.

Mirabelle seems to have found a better man in Ray Porter (Martin), a "symbolic logician" in his 50s who buys gloves from Mirabelle's counter and sends them to her as a gift along with a note asking for a date. Ray feels like he has made it clear that this relationship is just about sex and him buying her pretty things, but Mirabelle believes that they have a future. Ray, unlike "Translation's" Bob Harris (Bill Murray), isn't filled with despair over the emptiness of his life, nor does he have any inclination to change it. "Shopgirl" creates the odd situation where the audience really can't root for either of Mirabelle's suitors. (Who Mirabelle will end up with is obvious from the moment she discourages Ray from buying the "safe" gray gloves and make the bolder choice of the black ones.) That would be more devastating to the film if Mirabelle weren't an empty vessel herself, a woman who floats along without a compass and only belatedly finds a destination.

Tucker over-directs this simple story like the "Amθlie" version of "Tony Takitani," sterilizing whimsy so that no feeling can emerge. He bogs down his narrative with repetitive objects and loaded symbols like wine glasses and the contours of Mirabelle's body, which is often seen in repose or having its legs lotioned, lathered and shaved and can even be seen in the constellations above L.A. The film gets one symbol right in Mirabelle's pictures, which she makes by drawing the space around the object. "Shopgirl," like Mirabelle's drawings, is negative space.

Posted Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/shopgirl