Shopgirl

The only thing I don't like about Steve Martin's movie Shopgirl is that it has so much Steve Martin.

Steve Martin wrote a Novella about a year or two ago and it has been released as a movie starring him and Jason Schwartzman. It is about a girl who works at the counter at SACS who meets two men on completely opposite ends of the spectrum from one another that both fall for her. One is an older, more level headed, wealthy guy, and the other is young, broke, and completely emotionally charged.

This movie takes a few twists and turns that I liked a lot - and it was a breath of fresh air in a month of virtually no quality movie releases to speak of. This is not your typical "which one is she going to pick" romance, and its not easy to pick out the right thing for her to do with her life, either. I like that about this movie because your faced with the same decisions the shopgirl is, having to weigh options and make sacrifices instead of just having an answer shoved down your throat.

The story shows what can happen to a girl that doesn't value herself, a girl that doesn't recognize the worth she could and should have in a relationship. It also shows what can happen to a guy that doesn't value the things in his life as much as he should, or at least not the right ways, until its too late.

Everyone in this movie does an excellent job of acting, and I wish I could have seen more jason shwartzman....he was not as monumental of a character as I expected him to be. I fully expected him and steve martin to interact on screen, it would have been nice....but no, that's not what happens.

One thing REALLY bugged me about this movie, but other than what I'm about to mention, the movie was fantastic, one to own. Steve Martin narrates the story, and plays one of the lead roles. Well, call me crazy, but if you're narrating and your in the movie, you should probably be narrating as your character - that is, in first person. However, Steve Martin disagrees. So, he spends some time going "Ray Porter learned a valuable lesson today, Ray Porter will never forget.....Ray Porter is a sexy beast...look at that Ray Porter.....if I was that guy - speaking totally objectively here - I'd be an amazing person" (ok, I made some of that up, but my point still stands). It is distracting to have a narrator speak as though he's not in the movie. It was kind of annoying and came across as a little narcissistic. I don't get it.

The movie was sort of like Lost in Translation in the sense that you've got this GREAT comedic actor that is on the borderline of typecast (ok - I take that back, Steve Martin IS type-cast) who then breaks the mold and makes a romance about a young woman that just lights his long extinguished love flames, haha. Geez. Anyway, aside from that one big issue for me, I loved it.

Shopgirl is the movie of the month, seriously, because nothing else has even come close to getting my butt into the theater. If you can get past a little crazy steve martin ego-trip, then the movie is excellent.