This is a bitter sweet look at age and relationships. Every person has to choose between riches and loves at some point. It could be a job you don't want to do but you make more money. A degree. Or a relationship. People don't change and who you choose in your 20's will directly effect your 40's. The upside is you can have a fun life for 20 years before things nose dive & 20 years is pretty cool. Who would you choose? Who are you with now? Love is such an ethereal thing. What is love? What is lust? What are we all doing here anyway? This movie shows you how these things can play out. It has the emotional depth of a Woody Allen movie but simpler and more to the point. I liked it and would watch it again in a few years.

Shopgirl is memorable for the sole purpose of showcasing Steve Martin's incredible ability to create simple setups with sly wit and capable performances. Based on his novella of the same name, Shopgirl certainly has a premise with substantial ideas sure to bring light a wide range of material, monologues, and emotions, yet the problems that plague the film ultimately stunt the film's ability to succeed.The story revolves around Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes), a woman working at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills soliciting gloves that could probably only be afforded by the one percent of America, hoping to pay off her mountain of debt. In comes two men who will play a very important role in her life, one of them a socially inept self-employed artist she meets at a laundromat named Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman). The other is a successful, wealthy logician named Ray (Steve Martin).Both of these men bring very different benefits to Mirabelle, and both of them ultimately lack the same quality. Jeremy is the poster-child of quirky hipsters, aimlessly wandering in the uncertain circle of life, providing Mirabelle with biting, eccentric charm, while Ray has enough wealth to shower her with gifts, but fails to commit to anything more than a flirt taken to the next level. What both these men lack is the ability to give Mirabelle authentic love, and are both shallow when it comes to the idea of commitment and the skill of adapting to life's erratic ways.In terms of character development, the film provides some, yet what personally soured it were the character's personalities which were remarkably unremarkable. Ray is a decidedly bland, rich archetype, Jeremy is a rather annoying soul, and the audience isn't too preoccupied with Mirabelle's scenario, which turns from solidly constructed to bitterly formulaic by the latter-half.There's also a problem with many of the dialog scenes which I must go into once more. It seems more and more today, the most recent examples being Terri and The Myth of the American Sleepover, respectively, when characters talk to each other, there is a long, abrupt, unnatural pause between their conversations. It throws off the continuity and the realism of the conversation if prior to a character's response there's a two to three second pause. It's not real, it's not cute, it's cloying and artificial.To examine Shopgirl as a romantic comedy is a foolish and invalid move; it's a drama, with relationships in the foreground. It lacks the romance, the feel, and the formula of one of the genre-pieces; a notable feat, for sure. Its solid performances are aplenty, its strangely greenish-tint adds a nice texture to the cinematography, and the whole film can be summed up with the phrase "offbeat." Unfortunately, there's not enough in the way of tolerable characterization, emotional leverage, and true charisma to warrant a recommendation.Starring: Claire Danes, Steve Martin, and Jason Schwartzman. Directed by: Anand Tucker.

A sublimely tedious film! sit back and p*ss away two hours of your life staring deep into Steve Martin's Navel. The last and worst of the noughties movies about randy middle-aged men getting off with young cute young girls(American Beauty, Lost in Translation). But whereas the former can occasionally ascend to the state of bittersweet farce and the latter eventually becomes a meditation on the dislocations and absurdities of its backdrop setting, this movie never takes a step outside the small island nation of Steve Martin's ego. All this would make the film boring. But what makes it really gut wrenchingly awful is the directors crow-barred insertion of really loud and melodramatic music. I think the director thought she was Jean-Luc Godard. Please, please don't waste your time with this film!

Romantic comedies are difficult to review: it's easier to analyze the story than critique its aesthetic, and one is nearly indistinguishable from the next, with very few exceptions. Case in point: Shopgirl. Surprisingly, despite Steve Martin's trilogy of collaboration to the film, his usual wild-and-crazy-guy comedy is scarce, even more so than his previous "serious" films. This time around, he gives us a collection of characters that are so visceral and relatable, they seem to jump off the screen and into our lives. The result is deep emotional insight into our perspectives of relationships.Steve Martin is Ray Porter, a wealthy older man, charmingly reserved in his demeanor, working as a "symbolic logician" which enables him to calculate any given situation in his mind as mathematical equations. Claire Danes is Mirabelle Buttersfield, the exemplary wonderful yet unlucky young woman desperately anticipating an imminent romantic happening, even so desperate as to sleep with a slacker with a momentary condom predicament. Jason Schwartzman is said slacker, Jeremy, who embodies the typical mid-twenties free spirited fellow, whose lazily good-hearted nature is almost completely hidden by antics of swing-and-miss efforts toward intimacy.After this generously paced trio of introductions, the story unfolds with very real, human moments of emotion and reaction. After the excruciatingly awkward Jeremy, we move onto Mirabelle's next suitor, Ray, and the film takes a much-appreciated sharp turn towards class and moderate sophistication. Ray is charming, articulate, and "after Mirabelle sizes him up, no alarm bells sound." Probably the most important key scene is when Mirabelle is certainly beginning to fall for him. The lead-in shots delineate quite clearly that they are going to have sex. Standard enough, but the scene is anything but. Elegant, artistic, and tasteful, she waits for him on his bed, completely submissive and vulnerable—naked physically and emotionally—she is surrounded by a red wall; the symbolism speaks for itself, in a vibrant, cinematic voice. This moment, with Steve Martin's heart-warming reaction to her and music to match, is as taming and beautiful as a romantic scene can possibly be.It is around this time when we start to see Jeremy's side story cutaways regularly, something the film could easily have done without. The manner in which his character evolves is far from mature or genuine. Reciting lines from dating and self-help books on her voice mail hoping to win her over while sounding like he still hasn't a care in the world? Oh, how cute. What made me cringe is the thought that some girls would probably fall for it.All we really care to follow is what happens between Mirabelle and Ray, their situation constantly growing in complexity as time goes on, due to the fact that Ray has no intention on a serious relationship, whereas Mirabelle obviously appears to have the opposite idea, yet simultaneously seems to be in denial. What adds to the complexity? Ray begins to care about (and for) her. This father figure complex could be too much to handle for most any man.The film progresses characteristically like a relationship: freely moving, unpredictable, with bittersweet heartache and hope together, the occasional bombshell dropped, and a decent amount of uncertainty. Is Ray thinking of her while he's away? Will Mirabelle continue this girlish inclination of unspoken inner thought? And as stated amongst her friends, how will he react if she calls him 'sweetheart'? Also, note the development of aesthetic details. Namely Mirabelle's perspective on things as shown via color schemes, as well as how her clothing, or sometimes lack thereof, reflects her emotional reaction to a given situation. With the last several tear jerking lines, the film is certain to leave the audience with the one prominent lingering thought: Steve Martin is one amazing writer, actor, and it is because of him that this film holds far more currency than the modern chick flick.On the surface, and strictly in words, the above may sound like typical romance movie cheese. However, if you thought When Harry Met Sally was too funny to be taken seriously, or if… well, if most any other romance movie was too painful to swallow its sap, Shopgirl is an ideal film, thoroughly enjoyable, and definitely NOT cheese. I'd love to clearly express this further, but this review's getting long, and I'm no Steve Martin.