Going Shopping
directed by Henry Jaglom
starring Victoria Foyt
MTI Home Entertainment
Holly Gilmore (Foyt) runs a high-end thrift shop in Beverly Hills while her boyfriend Adam (Bruce Davidson) embezzles the bank account and forgets to pay her rent. The eviction visit from her landlord (Pamela Bellwood) is a shock, and soon things are so tight she won’t even let her preteen daughter (Mae Whitman) get a crucial belly button piercing. Not even her loyal clientele of clothing-addicted customers can pull her through, and without $40k by Monday her self esteem will be lower than the rents in Watts. Her world is unwinding and we listen to little vignettes of clients, friends, and relatives all discussing the rush they get from the perfect purse or a skirt too cute to imagine.
While this chatty chick-flick conducts us on that scary journey into the mind of the female shopaholic, the script is more a TJ Maxx closeout than a Neiman Marcus Christmas Book. A scene with a loan shark looks promising, but when she finds out a $40k loan only nets her $26k in hand, she gets out of the deal by offering the mob a 50% discount on anything they buy for a year. No one is sympathetic – Holly’s daughter whines constantly, her mother shoplifts professionally, and Holly’s plastic surgery bothered me in a way that’s hard to describe. Holly eventually ends up with cute but shopping-addicted Miles (Rob Morrow), but it’s not like you care. The stable of B-list actors doesn’t do anything for the story, but you might pick up a few tips about resale – never tag anything, cash flow is king, and a good label trumps good taste. If you rent this movie, keep the receipt.
