Shopgirl


Synopsis
Shopgirl is a film adaptation of a novella by comic Steve Martin. Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes) is a single twenty-something stranded at a department store glove counter in Los Angeles. When two very different men come into her life, Ray Porter (Steve Martin), a wealthy, significantly older man and Jeremy Kraft (Jason Schwartzman), a twenty-something misanthrope, Mirabelle is forced to look at her life and make some important choices.

Observations
I was a fan of the novella when I read it in 2001 and I was not let down by this movie. It’s an odd love story with lots of odd little components that make it work. Jason Schwartzman is an eager, quirky puppy dog and his energy is refreshing. Claire Danes is attractive in an odd, everyman kind of way. Danes looks great throughout most of this movie, wearing a wide array of vintage button front dresses and heels; very classy.

Martin chose to make himself the omniscient narrator and primary love interest. I found him to have no sex appeal at all, which made Mirabelle’s attraction to him and subsequent scenes of intimacy kind of weird.

I wonder why this movie was rated “R”. There was no explicit nudity and the language didn’t strike me as necessitating an “R” rating. My guess is that the under-18 crowd wouldn’t even be interested in Claire Danes being intimate with Steve Martin, AKA the Dad from Cheaper By The Dozen, but who knows?

Rating:

Amazon's entry for Shopgirl