Long before Claire Danes started earning multiple Emmy Awards as the bipolar Carrie Mathison on Showtime’s knock-out series Homeland, she was starring in lesser-known, independent movies like Brokedown Palace, Igby Goes Down, and 2005’s completely underappreciated Shopgirl. I watched this movie for the first time back in 2008 or 2009 and was blown away by how awesome and authentic it felt. This was long before Homeland. I have since watched every episode of Homeland (including seasons 1 and 2 twice each), so it was cool to re-watch Shopgirl, knowing everything that I know about the character she plays on the television show that earned her fame. Ironically I thought this was the first movie that Steve Martin (Parenthood, Three Amigos!) wrote. It turns out he’s written dozens of films (including Three Amigos!, Roxanne, LA Story, The Jerk, and Bowfinger), but this was the first real non-comedy that he wrote. Maybe the difference was that with Shopgirl was that he wrote the novel in addition to the screenplay. And let me say that he did a great job. I had a couple of problems (which I will include below), but for the most part, he killed it. I would not read this review unless you’ve seen this movie. It’s going to be chock-full of spoilers. I would love to hear what you think about it if you have seen it. If you haven’t, stop reading now and check out the movie.

Does this movie reinforce the point that the good guys can win? Possibly. Though Mirabelle (Danes) is the star here, the film would not work without the contrasting performances of Ray Porter (Martin) and Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman – Saving Mr. Banks, The Darjeeling Limited). I will use the real age of the actors when this movie came, which will serve as a reference for a good chunk of this review. In 2005, Steve Martin was 60 years old, Jason Schwartzman was 25 years old, and Claire Danes was also 25 years. All three people I would consider to be good-looking so that we can take out the attractiveness filter. In this movie, Jeremy and Ray are vying for the affection of Mirabelle. However, neither man knows the other exists. I could be mistaken, but I don’t believe the two characters meet during the film. They are in the same scene briefly near the conclusion of the movie. Jeremy is a bit of a free-spirited oddball. He isn’t afraid to say exactly what he is thinking at any given moment (ironically, Ray isn’t afraid to say what he is thinking at any moment either, though this is where their similarities end).

Mirabelle works at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, California. She works the glove counter at the upper echelon department store, often catering to the rich and famous. From the moment we meet her, we can tell that she doesn’t gain satisfaction from her job. We don’t get too much of a back story with her other than learning from her that her real passion is art. However, she can only complete a work of art about once every sixth month or so. She sort of dismisses the question of why she doesn’t complete projects more often. We don’t know her relationship history either. We know that she is 25 and currently single at the movie’s start. At least a couple of her co-workers are a little more superficial in their jobs, whereas it is nothing more than just a job to a Mirabelle. It is how she pays her bills. She has no real passion for it. In fact, she doesn’t appear to have much of a passion for life. I would say that the way her life displays itself in the first few minutes of the film is mundane.

Mirabelle gets pursued first by Jeremy. They meet at a laundromat. He makes his interest in her well-known, whereas if he hadn’t approached her, she might not have acknowledged his presence. He has greasy, wild hair that falls wherever it wants. He wears disheveled clothes. Think of the word “grunge,” and you might think of Pearl Jam or Nirvana or, in particular, Eddie Vedder or Kurt Cobain. Imagine a penniless version of Eddie Vedder, and there you have Jeremy. And by I mean poor, I mean broke, as he literally has no money to his name. He’s also quite quirky. Some women would find it charming, while others would find it immature. Mirabelle seems to find it a little of both. She likes his sense of humor, and his straightforward nature and inability to accept her rejections slowly win her over. Like Mirabelle, Jeremy is an artist. His big plan to get famous is to put his art on amplifiers that you see at concerts. He thinks that the bland amplifiers used by all music artists are a missed opportunity, and he is determined to capitalize on it. Like he knows he will succeed with his plan to get famous via this career opportunity, Jeremy also thinks he will succeed with Mirabelle. He just needs to bide his time. And sure enough, a couple of days later, she calls him, and they find themselves together in her apartment. The man is not smooth, and he would not have a chance with Mirabelle more often than not. Now Mirabelle is far from perfect, but she certainly is more mature than Jeremy. Nonetheless, despite some awkwardness and some social miscues, they spend the night together, which is good for both of them. They are both happy but insecure and still learning the book of love.

Enter Ray Porter, a man 35 years older than Mirabelle who has so much money that he doesn’t know what to do. In just a couple of weeks, he has charmed the socks off of Mirabelle so much that she completely forgets about Jeremy and then politely tells him that she has met someone else. Jeremy leaves down during the entirety of Mirabelle and Ray’s relationship. He’s landed a gig (paid or unpaid, we aren’t sure), touring with a band. It’s hard not to at least examine that Ray is old enough to be Mirabelle’s father (really grandfather, if you want to get nit-picky). Mirabelle is a beautiful woman you think would have a line of suitors. But this businessman does have the ability to enamor many a woman with his witty personality, natural good looks, and loads of money. He is kind. He is generous. He is sophisticated. And he sweeps Mirabelle off of her feet. He attempts to explain that he is not looking for anything serious with her, but their signals get crossed, and what he hopes she heard and what she thinks she heard are two different things, and this soon becomes a sticking point. She hopes to fall in love and start a family with this great man while he is willing to stay committed to her until the relationship runs its course, and then the two can split amicably. But we know that both of these things will not happen.

There were some parts to Shopgirl that weren’t perfect. However, I will give the novel the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to assume that these issues weren’t entirely addressed in the movie because they had to fit within the confines of two hours. The first is Mirabelle’s use of anti-depressant medication. This is a massive part of her character, but it isn’t addressed early enough. And the first time we are made aware of it, I honestly believe that more than half the audience would have missed it. There is a scene where she goes back to her kitchen to grab a bottle of prescription medication only to give it a quizzical look and a smile that only we, as the audience, can see before leaving the bottle. It is a movie that tells us that she will go off her medication because she feels happy. Some of us will “get it,” and it will make perfect sense. But most won’t. Most will wonder for a while what sort of medication it even was. I was trying to recall back to my first viewing of the movie to see if I could remember that that was what she was doing, but I cannot recall. In any case, we can see that Mirabelle is at her best when she is around Ray, but she is filled with anxiety and worry when he is not around, and she is trying to make sense of their relationship. They want different things, which does not sit well with her, so much to the point where she needs Ray to check her into a hospital when she goes through a bad spell. Steve Martin is not making light of the subject. In fact, he’s doing quite the opposite. It’s brought to the forefront. However, we move past it before we truly deal with it because there were other parts of the story that needed to be told, and there were only so many minutes in which you could tell the entire story. I do understand that. I would have rather seen this movie made like it was than not have the film made. And maybe, I will read the book to see if the aspect of Mirabelle’s mental illness is discussed more in-depth. Ironically, her role as Carrie Mathison in Homeland has a similar disorder to that of Mirabelle, though she handles it differently. Perhaps when casting for Homeland, the producers say something in Shopgirl that convinced them Claire Danes would be perfect for its lead character.

The other, and more significant problem, that I had with the movie was when Ray tells Mirabelle that he has cheated on her. He writes a letter and sits there unemotionally as she reads it, weeping. I don’t condone cheating at all. I give the character (and all cheaters) slight credit for informing the other person that they cheated, especially when, as would have been in the case of Shopgirl, they clearly could have gotten away with it. Ray says he wrote the letter outlining what he had done because he didn’t know if he could have gone through with telling her. But it was just awkward that she read the letter crying her eyes out while he sat on the edge of her bed. The way she reacted to the news and what we knew about her character leading up to this point would have suggested that he would have been out of her life forever right then and there. When cheated upon, most of us lose the ability ever to trust that person again. I know a lot of people can forgive and move past it. For me, that would be something much easier said than done. I never understood that when I was younger. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to understand but still look at the issue in the same way. I know that maybe it is different the deeper you are into a relationship or if you have kids or whatever. But at the root of it lies the same issue. How do you ever trust that person ever again? I think if a person says, “It will never happen again,” that it is more untruthful than if they said, “I will work hard at making sure this never happens again.”

I thought it would have been perfectly acceptable for the movie to move towards its conclusion from that point. It could have ended nearly the same way as if she had decided to give Ray another chance. Life is messy, and I appreciate uncertainty when it comes to relationships portrayed on the screen. So while it was hard for me to believe that Mirabelle would have forgiven him, I realize that we are all different, and while she may not have forgiven him, other prevailing factors sometimes come into play. Mirabelle loved Ray. And while she was significantly hurt and wanted to move on, her love for him and the belief that they could be something more ultimately won out in the short term, and she gave him another chance. But though she believes he won’t cheat on her again, she is still hurt because he doesn’t love her the same way that she loves him. While she is more than a convenience to him, she is not what she wants to be to him and knows she never will be. This ultimate acceptance (it was a realization to her long before) convinces her to end things. The line, “So I can either hurt now or hurt later,” is such a fabulous line.

I think the ending of Shopgirl was fabulous. Jeremy returns enlightened. A little self-help and the ability to look at life through a different lens allow him to wow and woo Mirabelle differently. He still has quirky charm, but he has the skills to be an adult and be in an adult relationship. Mirabelle has found balance in her life too. She can more effectively balance her job, relationships, and hobbies. One of the last scenes shows her hosting an art show with three other people. Jeremy is there. Ray shows up to offer his support, and this is the only time that Ray and Jeremy are in the same room. Mirabelle simply says that she will talk to her friend, and Jeremy is secure enough to say okay. Ray does bring a woman to this event, which, in itself, is either question entirely. Should he have done so? What if Mirabelle was not with Jeremy? Would Mirabelle be jealous? Did she deserve to be put in a position where she could have been made to feel jealous on her big night? The woman with Ray was closer to him in age, but that didn’t matter. She was still attractive. Did he bring her to be supportive? Or did he bring her to let both of them know that there was no chance that his being there was anything more than as a friend who wanted to support a person who meant so much to him? Lots of questions that don’t need answers here.

The very, very end was also fantastic. Ray had said that he didn’t want to be in a committed, long-lasting relationship and that he sort of had the upper hand when it came to Mirabelle because he was the one who could up and end the relationship at any point and not be hurt. In contrast, he felt he hoped she would be able to do the same, but deep down inside knew that the end of the relationship could crush her. I never felt that Ray wanted Mirabelle to be hurt, but he knew he could never be. But as he watches her and Jeremy at the end, he sees two people, both 20 years his junior, in love. All he can do is wonder what he had lost with Mirabelle and what he might be missing if he could throw himself into an honest, loving relationship, one that involves real risks, and give it his all. The fade-out of Steve Martin’s character tells the story of so many of us who have never experienced true love, whether by choice or not, as we watch two people (whether we know them or not) truly in love with one another. It can be a crippling feeling. It can also be a feeling that we feel like we can prepare for and still be crushed by it. Or we can just look on, just like Ray does here, and wonder, “What if?”.

The acting in this movie was fabulous. Martin plays Ray Porter perfectly. On the outside, he is confident, charming, financially secure, and seemingly able to get whatever he wants. He has absolute confidence that doesn’t touch the side of cockiness that many men would love to have. But this is perhaps the most vulnerable and inwardly insecure character that Martin has ever played. Parenthood is Steve Martin at his absolute best. Some will swear that movies like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Planes, Trains, Automobiles, Roxanne, The Pink Panther, or The Jerk are the quintessential Steve Martin defining movies. But that is the goofy Martin, and while that Martin is good and will make you laugh for sure, this shows Martin’s range as an actor. Unfortunately, he is not funny in this movie. Outside of his physical features, he is nearly unidentifiable. Schwartzman is the comic relief.

Martin is charming and likable, but humor is not one of the first ten adjectives you would associate with Ray Porter. And for that, I was grateful. I LOVED seeing Martin outside of the goofy humor. We’ve never seen him in a role like this before, and if you are a fan of his work, you have to check out Shopgirl. The internal struggle you see him going through just by his nonverbal expressions when trying to figure out his relationship and feelings towards Mirabelle is a reason for watching this movie on its own. But that is certainly not the only reason. This is movie storytelling at its very most beautiful. And even when it isn’t perfect, there is enough around it to compensate for that fact. That is when you know you have something exceptional. And, for me, that’s what Shopgirl was, a remarkable movie that hit home with me in many ways.

Plot 9/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 9.5/10
Acting 9.5/10
Screenplay 8.5/10
Directing  8.5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 9.5/10
90%

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