SHOPGIRL

RATING:

Starring: Steve Martin, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras, Frances Conroy, Sam Bottoms, Rebecca Pidgeon, Joshua Snyder. Written by: Steve Martin. Directed by: Anand Tucker.

Rated R for some sexual content and brief languagel

Shopgirl accomplishes what countless films before it have tried, but few actually achieve. It tells an honest love story. This might seem a clichéd way of opening a film review, but when mulling over just how to encapsulate the work, well…it just seemed the most honest way.

Written, produced and starring Steve Martin (adapted from his own novella), Shopgirl centers around the titular character named Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes). Freshly graduated from college, the plain yet appealing young woman works at Los Angeles’ Saks Fifth Avenue in a section that sells old fashioned gloves that nobody particularly wants. Her days are spent leaning on her station’s glass counter watching the hustle and bustle going on in every other department but her own. Not to be outdone by her occupation, Mirabelle’s personal life is just as uneventful. As she feeds her cat and watches television by herself in an empty apartment, the point is not hard to miss. The girl is lonely. Of course it doesn’t stay this way for long.

Mirabelle soon meets Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman), a slacker, guitar amp salesman who reveals flickers of charm in his oddness, but is mostly just odd. You get the impression that Mirabelle’s initial attraction and tolerance for Jeremy stems largely, if not mostly, from her chronic loneliness. She appears to forgive his off-beat personality for his fleeting sweetness and apparent interest in her. You also get the impression that it won’t last. And it doesn’t.

Amidst sporadic encounters with Jeremy, Ray Porter (Steve Martin) comes along. A self-made millionaire in his fifties, he seems to entice Mirabelle with a maturity and charm that Jeremy will probably never be capable of. Their romance takes its time but eventually becomes more frequent. Mirabelle develops strong feelings for Ray. Ray tells her that he isn’t looking for anything serious. As the film goes on, their relationship becomes complicated. Her emotions only grow stronger. Ray, while never verbally affirming, leads her to believe there is eventual hope. It is the sometimes thrilling sometimes painful dynamic between the pair that fuels the tale.

Danes does an amazing job given the complexity of her role. While shy and somewhat awkward, Mirabelle is not without confidence. There’s a vulnerability to her, yet she displays an aggressive side. Danes balances and blends all of these elements seamlessly, never once allowing the audience to presume they have this character completely figured out. In a way she is the film’s barometer as the stages of the story parallel her personal evolution from beginning to end. As relationships are rarely neat, neither is this story. The actress, commendably, keeps her performance real from one scene to the next and finds the truth behind each moment. To their credit, Martin’s screenplay provides such truths throughout the entire work and director Anand Tucker unearths them in beautiful ways, always with the right tone. This task is even more impressive considering the material itself is, on the surface, unexciting.

While hailed as a comic hero, Martin’s dramatic turn here proves one of the best roles of his career. In a way, Ray is just as hard to peg as Mirabelle. There are many scenes where his kindness and actions toward the young girl lead you to believe there might be reciprocity in her feelings. Then there are moments shortly after where he makes you feel just as fooled and mistaken as she does. He is a character who is selfish in his generosity. You want to dislike him for what feels like misguidance but, at the same time, cannot say he wasn’t up front with you. Essentially, you get the impression that he is a man who doesn’t himself understand why he acts the way he does. Martin, for countless years branded a loveable funny man, conveys Porter’s ambiguity convincingly.

Schwartzman’s character at times feels too much like a caricature to fit in this film. At other times it was perfectly bizarre. It’s interesting that his character at first seems incapable of communicating normally with other people. He doesn’t follow conventional conversation and seems to jump unexpectedly in mood and topic, unaware of whose around him. Despite this, his feelings prove the most earnest when compared with Mirabelle and Ray. To his credit, Schwartzman’s portrayal of a young man whose genuine yet ill equipped to express this normally is believable.

Shopgirl never bends to the way a cinematic love story is expected to be but stays true to its world. Elation, depression, passion and confusion all plays their parts accordingly in this film and paint a contemporary portrait that many filmgoers will appreciate and relate with.