2. Shopgirl (2005); Relationships don’t always fit like a glove.

Directed by Anand Tucker

Written by Steve Martin

Starring Steve Martin, Claire Danes, Jason Schwartzman

Author of Novel and Screenplay; Steve Martin

This film revolves around a young girl named Mirabelle (Daines) who is working at Saks 5^th Avenue in Los Angeles, California. She meets this quirky and somewhat immature guy named Jeremy (Schwartzman) while doing her laundry one night. A few days after meeting him, she meets this wealthy, sophisticated man named Ray Porter (Martin) and he blows her away with gifts and attention. She then struggles to stabilized and define her relationship with Ray Porter while Jeremy is off following a band on tour for a few months.

A love triangle? You would think. The thing about this movie is that she isn’t really deciding between the two at all. While I watched the movie, I thought that she was, but she wasn’t. She picked Ray Porter. He just ended up being the wrong one. So she then went to Jeremy. Nice back-up plan.

Communication is the real issue in this movie. If Ray Porter had flat out said, “This is nothing serious. I just want your body.” Then there would be no confusion. All this plays in contrast to her relationship with Jeremy. The two of them seemed a little more straightforward. Take for instance their meet cutes. While Ray Porter deceives Mirabelle with a purchase of a pair of gloves, Jeremy straight up asks for her number. While this plays to forecasting the result of each relationship, I also think that their meetings are also huge parts of each development of characters. Mirabelle went out of her comfort box to go out with Jeremy and then completely shocked herself when she ended up dating Ray Porter.

Like any other love triangle-based movie, monetary stability is always a deciding factor. Lon or Noah? On one hand, the wealthy and lovable Ray Porter. And on the other, Jeremy, the one that makes you laugh, but also makes you want to rip your hair out with frustration.

Now, this is one of my main issues with the movie. While Jeremy is “on tour” with this band (Who turned out to be the Red House Painters, by the way. Amazing!) he was forced by the band to listen to these self-actualization cassette tapes. When he got back to L.A. and saw Mirabelle we are supposed to believe that he changed so much. But, why have Jeremy change his life around because of these weird tapes? Why not let him really connect to the lead singer and have hardcore intense conversations with him all the time about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. I thought that this was a very strange way to allow Jeremy evolve to become the guy Mirabelle needs him to be. On that note, Jeremy and Mirabelle are both changing drastically throughout the movie, while Ray Porter stays identically the same until the very end when he realizes what jerk he is. I thought this was a wonderful thing to notice while watching the movie. It sort of linked the two characters together even while they were apart. Character transformations were mostly done through wardrobe and costuming in this film, which I always love to notice. Their three apartments were drastically different, showing their separate style and priories.

The artistic elements used in the film were really wonderful. I am a big fan of color symbolism and I was watching some of the special features where the designers of costume and set both spoke of the different colors used in the movie to reveal change. It was really interesting to hear their thought process. Just in case you were wondering, this was the pattern of color used: cool greens and blues to show contentment; more bolds and reds to show abrupt passion and romance; yellows to show happiness, both light and deep blue to symbolize depression; pastels to show evolution of change almost back to the beginning’s contentment; and then more bold colors to show stability and love.

Random: I loved how she had to walk up and down and then up again to get to her apartment. Showed the “rollercoaster” that she was going through.

Throughout the movie, Mirabelle is drawing this one piece of art. With every intense change in the movie she would color the white square’s perimeter with a thicker black, making the square smaller. This, to me, symbolized her sanity and stress level. She was trapping herself in one bad relationship that seemed to be the only thing on her mind. Art was used pretty heavily in this film. Creation of art was shown as a connection between Jeremy and Mirabelle, while art appreciation, such as visiting art galleries, was shown to connect her to Ray Porter. Art also helped us subconsciously be reminded the Ray Porter has money and Jeremy doesn’t. Usually it’s the poor that paint and the rich that buy.

I thought this movie was just alright. Maybe I need to watch it again. On the Becki Scale, I give it a 5.