Confessions of a Shopaholic Movie Review

I saw this movie at Mid Valley on the 19th of March. I was really lazy to put this up early for some reason. But better late then never. This movie has been out for a while by the time I saw it, I know, but it wasn't on my movie checklist anyway because none of them are currently viewing. The film had quite a promotion I see. It was also based on the book with the same name by the famous chic lit novelist, Sophie Kinsella. Many movies nowadays are adaptations of something, books, comics videogames, even anime & manga. Not many new ideas get through. Maybe it's because of the recession in which they were trying to play it safe by makinga movie that already had followers from the material it was based on therefore they know that it will be watched by some people no matter how bad the reviews are. Or maybe even if it wasn't adapted, the original movie was made a sequel. Playing it safe all the time. Even hollywood is not recession-proof.

Ok enough about my rants on the recession topic, going on to the movie. Since I had a friend that had read the whole Shopaholic books, I had this person to accompany me to watch it. We saw the first show of the day which was at 11.30am. The movie was 1 hour and 45 minutes. The movie was about Rebecca Bloomwood also known as Becky among her friends, who had an unhealthy obesession towards shopping (thus the name shopaholic) until one day she had her debts getting back to her. Up to a point that even a debt named Derek Smeath was chasing her around to get her to pay her debts. She was living with her friends who are getting married later. She came to New York to work as a journalist. Having her expertise in shopping, she applied for a spot in the infamous Allete magazine only to be turned down and later working on another magazine that was under the same publisher. She works in Succesful Savings magazine which is the complete opposite of what she's capable of doing. Here is also where she met her benevolent editor Luke Brandon. The story goes on as she's trying to learn to overcome her shopping habits and at the same time trying to avoid the debt collector. A chic flick that everyone can enjoy.

Now, having someone who has actually read the book to accompany me, this person told me that the movie was loosely based on the book. For example in this movie, Becky stumbled upon Brandon for the first time at a hot dog stand which he payed for Becky's hot dog, instead in the book, they met for the first time on a plane, where Becky exposed her unhealthy shopping habits to Brandon, which will be her future editor of Succesful Savings. But even when the movie was loosely based on it, and this person being a true follower of the series, this person still says the movie was pretty good, which was saying much since usually people who had read the book would detest againts changing so much from the original material. That was a good sign. Personally, I think movie makers had to change it because if they had to take everything, or a major part of the book onto the screen, it would be a very lengthy movie and it wasn't suitable for movie goers. This movie I think was made this way so that it was suitable for both the novel readers and the movie goers. The movie goers had another chic flick and the novel readers get a rough idea of what Rebecca Bloomwood is in real life. No clever twist whatsoever in this film but that was ok and not necessary. The film was pretty ok. I don't really watch chic flicks but this movie made me think twice if I should shun the genre upon view. It was pretty good for a chic flick. Everything is in order and nothing is not understandable. The comedy was ok too. You should go see it if you haven't.

I give this movie an 8/10