Shopgirl

Plot

Mirabelle Buttersfield (Claire Danes), a transplanted Vermonter, is an aspiring artist and saleswoman at the evening gloves counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Her quiet, orderly existence - filled with both the mundane (futon furniture and an aging pickup truck) and the serious (a large student loan and a supply of antidepressants) - is disrupted by the sudden appearance of two disparate men.

Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) is an immature, awkward, socially inept, penniless twenty-something graphic designer for an amplifier manufacturer and aspiring typographer who enters Mirabelle's life first (in a laundromat). Mirabelle, aching for any kind of meaningful contact with someone else, gives him a chance, but it quickly fizzles after a half-hearted date (that she pays for) followed by a woefully underwhelming sexual encounter.

Ray Porter (Steve Martin) is a considerably older, suave, well-dressed, wealthy, divorced logician. Ray charms Mirabelle over the course of a few dates, one of which ends at his house. Mirabelle offers herself to him, and the morning after they have sex Ray tells her that he does not intend for their relationship to be serious due to his constant traveling between L.A. and Seattle. Each has a different understandings of this talk: Ray tells his psychiatrist that Mirabelle knows that he is going to see other people, and Mirabelle tells her acquaintances that Ray wanted to see her more.

Mirabelle and Ray embark on a lengthy affair, during which time Jeremy is working as a roadie for the band Hot Tears. Jeremy attempts to have one last liaison with Mirabelle before leaving, but she spurns him due to her relationship with Ray. While on tour, the band's lead singer introduces Jeremy to the world of self-improvement and how to better relate to the opposite sex. Mirabelle becomes increasingly devoted to Ray, who showers her with expensive gifts (such as paying off her student loans) instead of emotional affection. When Mirabelle's depression hits her hard (she has ceased to take her antidepressants because Ray makes her happy), he takes her to the doctor and cares for her, further deepening her reliance on him. Ray invites Mirabelle on a trip to New York, and Ray has her fitted in the dress shop at Armani.

During a business trip, Ray has dinner with an old girlfriend. During dinner she propositions him and he accepts. Ray confesses the liaison to Mirabelle. Devastated, Mirabelle ends the relationship, abandons her trip to New York and visits Vermont instead. While she is basking in the warmth and familiarity of home, Ray calls to apologize for hurting her and asks her to meet him in New York. She accepts. He takes her to a large party where she is the youngest guest, and she feels alone and out of place. When they return to the hotel room, Ray wants to be intimate, but Mirabelle rejects him.

After returning to California, Mirabelle meets Jeremy by chance on the way to an art gallery show, and they arrive together at the show. Her coworker Lisa (who has been suspicious of the new clothes Mirabelle has been wearing to work) mistakes Jeremy for Ray. Jeremy's path of self-improvement has changed him, a fact obvious to everyone but Mirabelle. After the show, Mirabelle goes home with Ray, and Lisa goes home with Jeremy thinking he's Ray. The next morning Ray devastates Mirabelle by announcing that he plans on looking for a bigger house in case he meets someone and decides to have kids. Jeremy calls Lisa thinking they have made a connection, but quickly finds out she has no interest in anything but Ray Porter (and his money).

Mirabelle permanently ends her relationship with Ray, deciding that she'd rather hurt now than later. She mourns the relationship for a short period of time, then comes out of it. She eventually quits her job at Saks and takes one as a receptionist in an art gallery. Jeremy pursues her again (properly this time) and they eventually fall in love. Mirabelle is invited to show her work at the gallery, and Ray attends the opening with his new girlfriend, the woman he cheated on Mirabelle with. Jeremy is clearly proud of his girlfriend and their interaction is as if they have known one another for years. Conversely, when Ray and Mirabelle finally interact, their conversation is full of recognition, yet noticeably strained. At the end of their conversation, Ray apologizes for how deeply he hurt her and admits that he did love her. Mirabelle is visibly touched by his admission and walks away. Her pain is short lived as she runs lovingly into Jeremy's arms. Ray watches the healthy, openly in love couple and remarks that he feels a loss even though he had kept her "at arm's length" to avoid the pain of their inevitable breakup.

Cast

Critical reception

At Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 61% (90 "Fresh" and 58 "Rotten" reviews), for an average rating of 6.3 out of 10, and is rated a 62 (based on 37 reviews) at Metacritic.

In his review in The New York Times, A.O. Scott called the film "elegant and exquisitely tailored . . . both funny and sweetly sad" and added, "[It] is a resolutely small movie, finely made and perhaps a bit fragile. Under the pressure of too much thought, it might buckle and splinter; the characters might look flimsy, their comings and goings too neatly engineered, their lovability assumed rather than proven. And it's true that none of them are perfect. From where I sit, though, the film they inhabit comes pretty close."

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle described it as "a film of wisdom, emotional subtlety and power . . . directed with a rare combination of delicacy and decisiveness."

In Variety, Joe Leydon observed, "Martin hits all the right notes while subtly conveying both the appealing sophistication and the purposeful reserve of Ray. But he cannot entirely avoid being overshadowed by Danes' endearingly vulnerable, emotionally multifaceted and fearlessly open performance. (In a few scenes, she appears so achingly luminescent it's almost heartbreaking to watch her.) The two stars bring out the very best in each other, particularly in a poignant final scene."

Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times said the film is "like Pygmalion for the upper-middle-brow business class flier. Which isn't to say it's bad. On the contrary, it's smart, spare, elegant and understated . . . Danes can fill a scene with one wounded glance, and her body language alone conveys a richness of character that makes an otherwise not very expressive character mesmerizing."

In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers rated it three out of four stars and commented, "The May–December thing worked in Lost in Translation and it works here, thanks to the perceptive and gracefully romantic script that Martin has adapted from his novella. This is not the wild-and-crazy Martin of Bringing Down the House, this is the Martin who writes for The New Yorker with erudition and wit."

Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times graded the film C and called it "too slight to be considered a movie yet padded enough to pose as a feature-length work . . . The blessing and curse of cinema is its ability to compress ideas into simple images. When the ideas are this simple, cinema crushes them to dullness. Mirabelle's unremarkable life simply doesn't deserve big screen treatment. Any author other than a Hollywood favorite like Martin likely wouldn't get it done."

In New York, Ken Tucker stated, "The challenge of the movie consists of making you believe that these two people, separated by age and status, could fall in love. Shopgirl succeeds in this with a confidence so sure and serene that you feel through much of the movie as though you’re listening to a fairy tale, an effect enhanced by the voice-over narration provided in soothing tones by Martin-as-Ray."

Susan Wloszczyna of USA Today said, "A serene luminescence surrounds Claire Danes [who] - reduced of late to action drivel (Terminator 3) or bit roles (The Hours) — finally fulfills the potent promise of her mid-'90s TV series My So-Called Life. Los Angeles doesn't look half-bad, either. When director Anand Tucker isn't training his camera on the jewel-like traffic lights below or the sparkling cosmos above, he portrays the City of Angels as a haven of spare elegance and urbane stylishness, as if it were Woody Allen's Manhattan but with better weather and inviting outdoor pools. But save for savoring Danes and an L.A. cleansed of gaudy excess, there is little that is truly novel about Shopgirl . . . The film ultimately lets Mirabelle down and leaves the viewer dissatisfied. A Lost in Translation drained of its wryly observed humor, Shopgirl is worth a browse. But it isn't always easy to buy."

Awards