Thursday, March 12, 2009
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Last Thursday, I got an invitation to a CLEO event, to watch "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (CoaS) @ Senayan City with other CLEO readers. I've been meaning to watch the movie,since I love love love the book so much, hence I was super excited to go.
Now, for those of you who have read the book, before going to the movie, I must warn you.. The movie and the book are like two different animals. I mean, of course a movie based from a book will always be different from the book, since you'll need to chop off here and there to make it more concise, but the essence is basically the same, right? Whereas for CoaS, that's not the case. Sooo many things are different from the book.. such as:
1. Becky Bloomwood is American. In the book, she's in fact British
2. The setting is in NY. In the book, Becky didn’t set a foot on America until the "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan"
3. Becky first worked at Gardening Today before she applied for Successful Savings to get a job at Aletta. In the book, she works at Successful Savings from the beginning, and there's no Aletta magazine
4. Luke Brandon is an editor at Successful Savings, and he's Becky's Boss, before he opened his own business called Brandon Communications. In the book, he's the owner of Brandon Communications, the biggest financial PR company in London
5. Becky goes to Shopaholic Anonymous (AA for shopaholics). In the book, there is no such thing as SA
2. The setting is in NY. In the book, Becky didn’t set a foot on America until the "Shopaholic Takes Manhattan"
3. Becky first worked at Gardening Today before she applied for Successful Savings to get a job at Aletta. In the book, she works at Successful Savings from the beginning, and there's no Aletta magazine
4. Luke Brandon is an editor at Successful Savings, and he's Becky's Boss, before he opened his own business called Brandon Communications. In the book, he's the owner of Brandon Communications, the biggest financial PR company in London
5. Becky goes to Shopaholic Anonymous (AA for shopaholics). In the book, there is no such thing as SA
There are still so many other details different from the book, like the green scarf (in the book it's greyish blue), Derek Smith being a debt collector (in the book he's a manager at the bank issuing Becky's credit card.. The collection manager I presume), Alicia being Luke's girlfriend (in the book, she was his subordinate at Brandon Communications), and how Becky auctioned her entire collection to payoff her debt.. (In the book, I don’t think she did that.. Or am I mistaken? --- could fellow shopaholic series readers confirm on this please..?) and so on...
Nevertheless, it was still a good movie ^^ Light, funny, entertaining, and it will make you feel less guilty about your recent shoppingvaganza (at least for me it did), since you certainly not a match for Becky Bloomwood, haha.
Isla Fisher totally matched my imagination of what Becky would be like if she were a real person. Attractive - but still approachable, cheerful, talkative, sweet, a little foolish, out of control, clumsy.. She really portrays Becky well, and for that I am definitely not disappointed. Now if I re-read the book, I'll be able to put Isla's face to Becky's character, and it would be totally suitable.
As for Luke Brandon.. Oh my God, I am totally in love with the character, and of course, Hugh Dancy, the actor. He is so damn good looking! Plus, he's got that boyish charm and also a bit of that quirky/geeky/awkward thing going on (which I absolutely love in a guy), all of which, make him totally adorable and lovable! And he's British, one thing I'm glad they didn't change in the script. I don't think he'd be that cute with american accent ;p Hira, Sasha, and I were discussing about him on the way home, and we concluded that he might just be the next Hugh Grant, only cuter and younger ^^
If for most movies based on a book we usually say that the movie doesn't justify the book, for this one, I can't really say that.. Since the two are very different. The only few communalities are that the main character's name is Becky Bloomwood, she's a shopaholic in debt chased by someone named Derek Smeath, and she ends up with a guy named Luke Brandon. That's it.
But that shouldn't stop you from watching the movie. If you're looking for something funny and entertaining, you've got to go to the cinema and watch this movie. You're guaranteed to have a good time. I know I did, with a bonus too.. I was elected one of the "Best Dressed" by CLEO and got a goody bag consisting of a Body Shop bronzer, a photo album -which I can totally picture as a cool scrapbook, a compact mirror-CoaS branded, and a CD of the movie soundtrack! Thanks a lot to CLEO for the invite! I certainly had fun!
Anyone want to watch the movie..? Count me in.. I definitely don’t mind watching Becky and Luke again ^-^
Comments:
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To your question about how she got out of debt in the first book, she got the job and morning coffee and was able to pay off everything. In the second book "Shopaholic takes Manhattan" she does auction off all of her clothes with the same result of Luke being two of the bidders as in the movie. I didn't like how Derek Smeeth came and ruined her tv debut in the movie, where as in the book he waits for her to finish and talks to her calmly and is rather nice about it. It also ruins the whole fact that Rebecca maintained the job with the show for a long time into the second book.
After loving the book so much i was very sad to see they completely mashed it together and ruined a lot of the story for me. I'll still love Sophie Kinsella though, she can do no wrong!
After loving the book so much i was very sad to see they completely mashed it together and ruined a lot of the story for me. I'll still love Sophie Kinsella though, she can do no wrong!
I do want to add that i did enjoy isla fisher as Becky and I picture her as Becky Bloomwood in my head. I was sad that it wasn't set in the UK as I thought it was fun as an American to try and find out what she was talking about some of the time. I actually had to find a British to American translator on-line for somethings, but that was the fun of it. Too bad, guess everything has to be Americanized for some dumb reason. Oh well
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