Shopgirl
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B Film: B
Steve Martin is so underappreciated it is amazing. Yes, he has made a commercial comeback in
films like Bringing Down The House and the Pink Panther revival,
but he has also taken risks over and over that he never got credit for. One issue has this idea from the public at
large that comic actors need to be funny all the time, as if they are only good
for being clowns. This has bred the
ugly idea of all artists being worthless and only good for mere entertainment
value by the Religious Right or Politically Correct Left, who are threatened by
anyone who can express themselves beyond shallowness, oversimplifying and
anger. An early Martin triumph over this
idiocy was Herbert Ross’ remarkable adaptation of Dennis Potter’s Pennies
From Heaven, the deconstructionist Musical back in 1981. Now, from Martin’s own novella, comes Shopgirl.
The story involves young Mirabelle (a new high for Claire
Danes) selling gloves and the like at a high-class clothing and accessories
chain. She is just trying to make ends
meet, handle her massive college loans and hoping not to see things become
worse. One day, a charming older man named
Ray (Martin) shows up to buy a pair of gloves.
Later, it is she who receives them!
Turns out he is interested in her, despite being much older. At the same time, she meets the wacky and
off-kilter Jeremy (a winning performance by Jason Schwartzman) who likes her
but is still too much of an emotionally and psychologically inept slacker to
meet her needs. At least his heart is
in the right place. This film tells
their stories and how they’re lives cross each other’s paths.
Director Anand Tucker does a truly masterful job bringing
their lives and the space it inhabits to life.
Obviously, the acting and camera talent is top rate, but you still have
to have a director who knows what he is doing (Tucker is far too modest to a
big fault on what a director does on the commentary) with a true love of cinema
apparent just from seeing the film. The
classics he loves give him better inspiration than most directors who sites the
high caliber of filmmaking he does.
Danes is brave and bold in how she puts womanhood on screen in the most
uncompromising way, which only gets you more and more involved in the
film. Though some items might be
predictable, the film is so real so often that those moments are palpable
gems. Shopgirl is the kind of
film about adulthood by adults that is deeply honest about the human
condition. This is a beautiful, smart
film and one of the most underrated of 2005, as well as the last few years.
The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in
Panavision by the great Peter Suschitzky, but Video Black is sometimes weak as
are finer details, so the transfer does not do the job of capturing how great
this film really looks. However, it has
its moments. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix
is dialogue-based and on the quiet side considering the type of film it
is. The combination will do, but it
will take Blu-ray to really do justice to the depth and detail in the image and
some subtly smart nuances in the sound.
Extras include the usual Disney previews, some deleted scenes that could
have stayed in the film, an outstanding audio commentary track by director
Tucker and making of featurette (21:43) Evolution Of A Novella. I hope this disc gives the film the big
audience it deserves to the point that more extras are called for. Don’t miss this one!
- Nicholas Sheffo
