Shopgirl
By Vikki Lusby, Blockbuster.co.uk

At first glance you may think that this movie is going to be your usual rom com, but in fact, this is a touching and poignant look at the life of a girl who works in the glove department at Saks and the love triangle that she manages to get herself into.

Based on the short novel by Steve Martin (Pink Panther) Shopgirl stars Clare Danes (Family Stone) as Mirabelle Buttersfield, a country girl artist who moves to LA to start her life. Instead she finds herself trapped into the hum drum world of making ends meet by working at Saks, going home to her cat and generally feeling very unfulfilled.

One evening at the laundrette she meets Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman – Bewitched) a graphic artist who’s passion is designing fonts! In a desperate series of dates Mirabelle becomes convinced that he is not the one for her, but he’ll do for now. That is until she meets Ray (Steve Martin) a rich divorcee who whisks her off her feet.

Whilst Mirabelle is being wined and dined by Ray, Jeremy decides that he can better himself and goes on tour with a rock band to find himself. This leaves Mirabelle to fully explore her relationship with Ray the older man.

Mirabelle sees Ray whenever he is in town and he showers her with gifts; but for Mirabelle there is something missing from the relationship. He tells her that he wants to keep it casual and that it is a short term thing, whilst she secretly wishes that if she plays by his rules he will change his mind and grow to love her.

While on tour, Jeremy has started to find his way and gain some success as a musician. Whilst on the tour bus he catches up on his reading about women and the female psyche.

Thanksgiving comes around and Ray has told Mirabelle that he will not be seeing her over the holidays. Instead he meets up with an old flame and ends up sleeping with her. This torments Ray’s conscience and he decides to tell Mirabelle the truth that he has slept with another woman. Devastated, Mirabelle retreats back to her parents and the life that she left behind. But upon arrival at her parents home she soon realises that she has moved on and needs to do something more with her life. A phone call from Ray inviting her to New York has her jumping ship back into his arms.

Things slot back into place with Ray in the same routine for a while until Mirabelle bumps into Jeremy who is back from his travels and has changed for the better, but as she is with Ray, Mirabelle makes him aware that she is unavailable.

Mirabelle, suddenly one day decides that she must make her decision, stay in a loveless relationship with Ray or make it on her own. She chooses the latter and decides to change her life around leaving her job at Saks to take a position at the local art gallery.

Arriving home one evening Mirabelle finds an invitation to dinner from Jeremy, they go out and find that things are not as disastrous as before. Slowly Mirabelle realises that Jeremy was the man that she had been looking for all along…… she'd just got there before him.

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