Confessions of a Shopaholic

I was asked to review “Confessions of a Shopaholic” for National Review.  When it debuted, however, I was in Fort Hood, Texas to meet the soldiers David served with in Iraq.  We landed in Austin and went straight to the movie theater with a whole row of soldiers trying to pretend they weren't amused -- in spite of very loud chuckles coming from their direction.

The review begins:

Sophie Kinsella’s charming novel Confessions of a Shopaholic was written in — and captures the spirit of — the late 1990s, back when people thought about dotcom riches, not Bernie Madoff, and when Citibank was a name on credit cards and not the banking equivalent of the Titanic. The main character, Rebecca Bloomwood, played by the mesmerizing Isla Fisher in the new film, grew up thinking Visa and American Express provided “magic cards” that allowed adults to buy whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. So when she became an adult, she got 12 of these magic cards, rationalized extravagant purchases (I’m saving money if it’s on sale!), and ignored the not-so-magical credit-card statements that came in the mail every month.

Anyone who has had a credit card might identify with this story — and that would be almost all of us. The average family today carries $8,000 in credit-card debt, only slightly less than the sum Rebecca is trying to conquer in the film, and 14 percent of us carry more than ten cards in our wallets. Most Americans went into debt less glamorously than Rebecca Bloomwood — by buying new Cuisinarts and plasma screens, not Hermes scarves or the latest Prada shoes. But honest viewers will wince at Rebecca’s on-screen antics and identify the same disease in themselves — an unwillingness to delay gratification by working hard, saving, and then purchasing. Or, even more radically, not purchasing at all.

Some say producer Jerry Bruckheimer — who spent almost eight years developing this movie — had bad luck with the timing of the release, given the debt bomb that has just detonated in the economy. On the contrary, the current economic malaise makes Shopaholic a much more interesting film.

 Read the whole thing here.