In keeping with today’s theme of shopping, the Hollywood Reporter brings us a perfect portrayal of just how irreparably woolly Hollywood’s grasp on reality has truly become. The Stock Market’s in free-fall, Hedge Funds are imploding and Foreclosures are almost a national blight. So what do you suppose is in post-production at Disney? A movie in praise of that deluded consumerist, the incurably dim Shopaholic.
Based on the novel by Sophie Kinsella, the film concerns a novice reporter with a penchant for writing but no head for figures, who’s $9,000 in debt on her plastic and still can’t seem to stop shopping. But it also delivers two unplanned surprises; 1) It’s from the Jerry Bruckheimer stable – the creative collective that launched Mr. Depp’s Pirates and turned Tom Cruise into a NASCAR geek, and 2) There are no product-placements involved.
Even accepting the fact that Hollywood’s best war-maker is now arming his leads with gold-cards, not Glocks, the absence of commerce is a sizable shock. The lead character spends a lot of her time [and even more un-earned income] at Bendel’s…yet the store has no links with the movie at all. She also wears Zac Posen in numerous scenes, but it was apparently just picked at random from wardrobe; And the absence of linkage just goes on from there.
This is either the nascent bloom of more considerate cinema, or the first creative PR in modern Hollywood times. Movies cost money and a plot like this should be ‘All-You-Can-Eat’ dining for the marketing staff. But apparently, that’s not the case.
Mr. Bruckheimer is not famous for such benign fare, but should this start a trend I may well be a fan.
