Shopgirl

(L-R) Steve Martin, Claire Danes. Photo Credit: Sam Emerson.
© 2005 Touchstone Pictures. All rights reserved.

 
I’m not without bias because I loved Steve Martin’s “L.A. Story” and “Bowfinger” for their astute observations of human idiosyncracies—particularly of the Southern California variety. While “Shopgirl” is set in Los Angeles (as is made obvious with the mandatory establishing shot of the U.S. Bank tower), it doesn’t have a sense of Los Angeles.

Instead, the story focuses on the relationships between Mirabelle (Claire Danes), an employee at Saks Fifth Avenue, her musician/eccentric boyfriend Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) and logician/jet-setter (which is to say he travels via private jet), yet older boyfriend Ray Porter (Steve Martin).

Mirabelle, barely able to pay her $40,000 in student loans, meets Jeremy at the laundromat. They don’t hit it off so much as they find no other social engagements interrupting their opportunity for dating and a botched attempt at casual sex. Just when Jeremy is revealed to be not merely eccentric, but (surprise!) an eccentric slob, we meet Ray Porter. Porter buys a pair of satin gloves from Mirabelle, and then, in what is certainly not the last dishonest method he will employ during their relationship, he obtains her name from the Saks staff so he can find her address and woo her with a gift.

I’m unsure if this is a problem, or perhaps is avoiding a bigger problem, but Jeremy is never entirely fleshed out. It’s always difficult with characters so bizarre, as overexposure to them can introduce drag into the plot. Aside from a botched first date that begins at Universal Studios Citywalk and ends with Jeremy borrowing a condom from the neighbor, we never really learn much about Jeremy… other than to occasionally see the story refer back to him as he progresses on his tour, with a band whose lead singer serves as a sort of Dr. Phil, helping him get in touch with his inner melodrama. This only serves one purpose, to get Jeremy back into Mirabelle’s life at the very end. On the one hand, it might have been better to deal with Jeremy and Mirabelle’s relationship rather than chuck it aside. On the other hand, such a plot could be construed as a cliché and unnecessary love triangle set up merely for the purpose of artificially inflating emotional conflict. I dunno.

When Ray steps into the picture, Jeremy suddenly is whisked away on tour by a band he meets while pushing one of the amplifiers for the company whose logo he designed. It’s as if Steve Martin, and not Ray Porter, shoves aside Jason Schwartzman so he can dote on Claire Danes. And dote he does… to a maddening degree.

Every scene with Mirabelle is a formal composition in terms of symmetry and color. Mirabelle, who can barely afford to buy shoes that match any dress, just happens to wear a dress to dinner with Ray that matches the hues of the restaurant. Coincidence? Perhaps not… but then it also matches her living room. When she’s not in a room or setting the dress can match, she’s wearing a different dress that compliments that setting. Slow-motion shots repeatedly linger on Claire Danes face in low, diffuse light that heightens the contrast of her cheek structure and also deftly conceals Steve Martin’s age. Is Mariah Carey in this movie?

Whether happy together with Ray, or alone, sad and wallowing in self-pity, Mirabelle is drowned in an overabundant score filled with more horns and strings than Yanni could stand on his most inspired day. It’s tiring, really. I’m trying to find a place where this film shines, but unfortunately I think Martin has chosen to write about a subject that takes him entirely away from his genius for satire and parody.

Throughout the film, Martin narrates… not quite asides, but rather as if he’s a third-person stepping back from direct involvement occasionally to observe the tide of the story rising and falling. Puck in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” comes to mind.

In “L.A. Story,” it’s made plainly clear that Steve Martin is a great fan of Shakespeare. Personally, I prefer Shakespeare’s comedies. He could have written many biting satires for, perhaps, Robert Altman, were he around today. Likewise, I feel that Steve Martin is most in his element when he’s observing the absurdities of every day life through the visual analysis of ideas and the nuance, meter and rhythm of places like Los Angeles. Here he examines relationships with such an over-wrought series of “I’m sorry” moments, each followed by a “but…”, you wonder, “To whom is he apologizing so profusely?”

If he has a regret about a past relationship, he should deal with it, instead of carting out Claire Danes as his object of lust. As I said before, the camera dotes on her so much, and the score smothers her so often, one begins to wonder whose lustful and guilt-ridden fantasies the film embodies… Porter’s? Or Martin’s?

I’ll refer you back to, I’ll argue, Martin’s masterpiece, “L.A. Story,” to a subplot that seems to have inspired this film. Harris Telemacher (Martin) is a weather man in Los Angeles. In a spur-of-the-moment midlife crisis, and with a marriage on the rocks, he manages a fling with a girl less than half his age—the eccentric and exuberant SanDeE* (yes, spelled like that), played by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Harris’ entire infatuation with SanDeE* is a fraud committed by himself upon himself, as is Ray’s false adoration for Mirabelle. Harris observes to SanDeE*, “All I’m saying is that, when I’m around you, I find myself showing off, which is the idiot’s version of being interesting.” Harris is paraphrasing the famous line from Macbeth, “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Ray’s version of adoration is buying Mirabelle things and flying down on a moment’s notice to be with her. But even Ray observes, after giving Mirabelle an incredible gift, “I don’t give you much. Financial things, but that’s easy for me.” So is this movie Steve Martin’s version of being interesting? He should know, after having produced a movie as funny as “Bowfinger” with characters as genuinely charming as Jiffrenson Ramsey (Eddie Murphy), that people (and movies) are always most interesting when they’re not trying so hard to be.

Shopgirl • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Running Time: 104 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for some sexual content and brief language. • Distributed by Touchstone Pictures