Full Version: Shopgirl
Many pluses and minuses. Jason Schwartzmann gets some nice, natural laughs with his goofiness in the first half hour, but his character's evolution stretches credulity. Steve Martin's character, not played for laughs at any point, is something of a cipher - his motivation for the relationship with the girl goes unexplained. Claire is brilliant, of course, but that's assumed.
Yeah, I agree. I thought Claire was wonderful (and those dresses!). I didn't not go for the Steve Martin character though.
It was easy to believe the Claire character going for the Steve Martin character, but vice versa wasn't explained - unless we should just assume he thought she'd be easy to mess around. But that's not really sufficient.
The Jason character going for the Claire character was a slam-dunk he-should-be-that-lucky scenario.
The Jason character going for the Claire character was a slam-dunk he-should-be-that-lucky scenario.
MILD SPOILERS ABOUT TONE, STYLE AND THEME
Three days later and I still haven't made up my mind about this movie. Danes was great, the first time I've really liked her. I thought the camerawork was amazing, yet subtle except for those cheesy tilt up to the stars then tilt down to a house shots they kept repeating. Unnecessary and out of style with the rest of the movie.
The biggest problem I have is with the Steve Martin character, Ray Porter. He was presented far too sympathetically. And got off way too easily (in more ways than one). The voice-over narration was weird too since it was Steve Martin's voice, but in the third person, not the character Steve Martin was playing. I guess they thought that was cool in that insipid post-modern way.
Has anyone read the book? I'm kinda of curious to see how closely the movie sticks to it. It seemed to be shot to be Steve Martin's movie (big shot movie star acting in a movie based on his screenplay adaptation of his novella, how can it not be self-indulgent? ) even though the story belonged to the Claire Danes character.
Three days later and I still haven't made up my mind about this movie. Danes was great, the first time I've really liked her. I thought the camerawork was amazing, yet subtle except for those cheesy tilt up to the stars then tilt down to a house shots they kept repeating. Unnecessary and out of style with the rest of the movie.
The biggest problem I have is with the Steve Martin character, Ray Porter. He was presented far too sympathetically. And got off way too easily (in more ways than one). The voice-over narration was weird too since it was Steve Martin's voice, but in the third person, not the character Steve Martin was playing. I guess they thought that was cool in that insipid post-modern way.
Has anyone read the book? I'm kinda of curious to see how closely the movie sticks to it. It seemed to be shot to be Steve Martin's movie (big shot movie star acting in a movie based on his screenplay adaptation of his novella, how can it not be self-indulgent?
) even though the story belonged to the Claire Danes character.
| QUOTE (GrantK @ Nov 10 2005, 11:48 AM) |
| MILD SPOILERS ABOUT TONE, STYLE AND THEME |
Yes on those camera shots - the opening shot is like A Touch of Evil, except it ends up in Saks.
Yes on Steve Martin doing the voiceovers - needs to be a different actor than the one playing Ray Porter. If this was supposed to be a Steve Martin star vehicle, he just had a movie stolen from him.
SPOILING...
I think it's okay he "got off way too easily" - it was believable.
Believable and satisfying are too often two different things for me.
My problem is that Jeremy's transformation was just too implausible. No one changes that much by listening/reading to self-help aides. But, when I put that aside I enjoyed it - Danes was lovely.
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