On Shopgirl
Sep. 21st, 2008 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseRomantic dramas aren't usually my thing. Far too many of them attempt to inject some Higher Meaning about Life and Love, and only end up inhabiting the realm of cheap melodrama. (Then there are the ones that only come off as sappy-sweet wish-fulfillment, but those tend to be comedies anyway.) I tend to like Claire Danes' work, however, and when Shopgirl came out a few years back, it got some good reviews. So I made a note to watch it sometime.
Having finally gotten around to doing so, I'm most pleased to report that it does what so few romantic dramas do: it understands that it's a quiet story about love, and meeting the right people at the wrong time, and the wrong people at the right time, and how love transforms people, and how it changes us even when we don't realize it. And as such, it's a near-perfect story - calm, understated, oftentimes sweet, with a natural flow that comes of being true to its characters (and its characters being true to the joys and foibles of being human beings). While the film itself isn't quite perfect (Steve Martin's voiceover could've been dropped completely, as could one of the subplots), the music, cinematography, and acting work together well to tell the story without the need for heavy-handed expositional dialogue. Definitely recommended for a quiet night in, especially when one needs reassurance that yes, people can learn and grow, and in fact often do.
Having finally gotten around to doing so, I'm most pleased to report that it does what so few romantic dramas do: it understands that it's a quiet story about love, and meeting the right people at the wrong time, and the wrong people at the right time, and how love transforms people, and how it changes us even when we don't realize it. And as such, it's a near-perfect story - calm, understated, oftentimes sweet, with a natural flow that comes of being true to its characters (and its characters being true to the joys and foibles of being human beings). While the film itself isn't quite perfect (Steve Martin's voiceover could've been dropped completely, as could one of the subplots), the music, cinematography, and acting work together well to tell the story without the need for heavy-handed expositional dialogue. Definitely recommended for a quiet night in, especially when one needs reassurance that yes, people can learn and grow, and in fact often do.
