FILM-FORWARD.COMReviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
GOING SHOPPING
With an eccentric and engaging story line, Henry Jaglom's charmingly quirky take on women's obsession with shopping
manages to enthrall viewers, while
tapping into deeper issues that underlie America's materialism. A
Sigourney Weaver-esque fashion designer, Holly Gilmore (Victoria Hoyt), is on
the brink of losing her 10-year-old boutique, and must procure $ 40,000 to pay
rent. What might be described as questionable acting skills in the beginning
(especially on the part of Holly's ultra-cute daughter Coco) becomes
instead a humorous and sympathetic portrayal of women’s struggle against
the oppressive forces of popular culture.
Interlaced are sequences of "average" women addressing the camera,
commenting on the significance of shopping: "It's a big romance," one
claims. Others relate shopping to war or a cure for depression. Such
comically superficial depictions seem at first chauvinistic and
grossly imbalanced, but the viewer comes to realize that Jaglom's intent is
not to reveal women as a shallow species, but rather, to point to the cause
of a sad reality. As one woman puts it, in childhood girls are fed the story of
Cinderella - how she manages to steal the prince's heart not with incredible
wit or intelligent conversational skills, but with an amazing dress and
killer glass slippers. Thus, girls are taught that appearance makes an
individual. This thought is further developed when Coco (Mae Whitman) - a sweet, barely
pubescent trendster - asks her mother permission to get her bellybutton
pierced to impress a crush.
Jaglom brings this male-female dynamic into play throughout. Holly decides
to leave her boyfriend when her demands of "where's my money?" are greeted
with a wince and a shrug. Holly's crazy kleptomaniac mother, delightfully and fittingly played
by Lee Grant (perhaps comically referencing her
award-winning performance as the shoplifter in Detective Story),
finds herself victim to a cheating mobster boyfriend. Later in the film, a customer has an anxiety attack
when she can’t find the proper dress for her engagement party - she realizes her fiancé’s tastes
have subjugated her entire identity.
Holly becomes the epitome of the quintessential independent woman when she
finally manages to obtain the necessary funds to keep her shop open. Her
new and refreshingly non-toxic love interest reveals he is a former
shopaholic - Jaglom's borderline-cheesy attempt to include the opposite sex
in his exposé. The film leaves the viewer
amused, discomfited, and in a state of query over whether or not to flee the
modern world. Parisa Vaziri
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