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 Confessions of A Shopaholic

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Confessions of A Shopaholic

Confessions of A Shopaholic is an American romantic comedy film directed by P. J.

Hogan and released in 2009. The film stares a college graduate, Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla

Fisher), whose obsession with shopping is unmatched and lands a job of writing for a financial

magazine (Horgan, 2009). Rebecca Bloomwood is a journalist who can control her urge for

expensive outfits and fashion items. The main characters in the film are Luke Brandon (Hugh

Dancy) and Rebecca Bloomwood.

At the beginning of the film, a young Rebecca looks at some beautiful shoes, and she

talks about two types of prices; her mother’s prices and real prices. Rebecca says that her

mother’s prices are buying items that last forever, whereas real prices buy wonderful

prices(Horgan, 2009). After receiving a pair of brown shoes, she enviously looks at the other

ladies. Rebecca looked at older girls try on jewelry and dresses and admired how they do not

even need money for the beautiful items as they swipe their credit cards. It becomes Rebecca

Bloomwood’s source of influence when now she becomes an adult. Rebecca had dreamt of a day

that she would be able to own a credit card and swipe it for exchange with perfect items she had

seen other older girls do while she was still young. While she is walking down the street, she

talks of how she did not know she would now own twelve credit cards. Rebecca Bloomwood

becomes a writer for a gardening magazine, and she has a closet full of expensive and beautiful

clothes and accessories and has a lot of debt. The debt has accumulated so much that she does

not even know the exact amount. A bill for $900 catches her attention, and she first thought that

her credit was stolen, but later on, she realizes that it was a charge for a farewell gift.

On her way to the interview at Alette magazine, which is run by Alette Naylor (Kristin

Scott Thomas), Rebecca Bloomwood notices a perfect green scarf. Even the mannequin tells her
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how the green scarf will define who she is. However, Rebecca recognizes a problem when she

tries to buy the perfect green scarf and spreads its price over several credit cards and cash, and

one card is declined; she runs short with $20 (Horgan, 2009). To sort this, Rebecca goes to the

hot dog vendor and begs the vendor to give her cashback on a check for an 'emergency.' She

even offered to buy all the vendor's hot dog, and she alleges that the green scarf is for a sick aunt.

Rebecca finally gets a rescue as someone in front of the queue offers her the twenty dollars to get

out of his way to get his dog; the person tells Rebecca that there is a distinction between cost and

worth. Finally, she rushes into Alette's office, but she gets shocked as the receptionist informs

her that Alice Billington has internally filled the job. However, the receptionist tells her that

there is a consumer finance magazine from the same parent company as Alette that is recruiting,

and she can try her luck there.

On rushing into the other company’s office, Rebecca Bloomwood meets her interviewer,

Luke Brandon (Hugh Dancy), who happens to be the man in line from the hot dog stand

(Horgan, 2009). The interview did not go well, and on returning to her job, she finds that the

magazine is winding up, and every employee has received their termination letters. On seeing

this, Rebecca goes back to her roommate, Suze (Krysten Ritter), who tears the rent check,

although this does not solve the debt. As they add the figures from the bills with the help of a

bottle of tequila, they realize that they are in a bad situation. On realizing this, they get the idea

of writing a sample article for Alette and a mean letter to Luke. However, a call from Luke the

following day makes her realize that she had put the letters in the wrongs envelopes, and she

immediately attempts to intercept the other letter to Alette, which she successfully intercepts.

There is consumer diversity evidence in Rebecca Bloomwood as she buys a mostly acrylic coat

and not cashmere, and she also writes about changes in terms of credit cards. Consumer diversity
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also comes out clearly as Rebecca’s new column, The Girl in the Green Scarf, is well received

by most readers. The head of the advertisement becomes nervous; however, Rebecca manages to

win over the company head, Finns from Nokia, and even the bankers and avoids being caught in

her lie that she is fluent in Finnish. She lies to Luke that the bill collection agent, Smeath, is her

ex-boyfriend, stalking her.

Rebecca Bloomwood suffers because of normative influence. When she secures a

television spot with Luke because of her work, Alette takes her shopping, and she buys an outfit

that costed a month’s pay. She badly wanted to belong to the group despite her debt problems.

During shopping, Smeath calls Alette and reveals Rebecca’s debt issues. Suze was disappointed

to see Barney’s shopping bag and sent Rebecca back to the support group (Horgan, 2009). Later

on, Rebecca settled for Barney’s dress for the television appearance. Smeath exposed her debt

issue during the lie television show. He also exposed the lie Rebecca had been making around

that he, Smeath, was her ex-boyfriend, something even Suze, her fiancée Tarq, and Rebecca’s

parents all saw. Ongoing back to their apartment with Suze, a homeless woman passed by

wearing Rebecca’s bridesmaid dress while conversing with Suze. Suze got angry and moved out

of their apartment.

On realizing the troubles, she is in, Rebecca went back to her support group to look for

help (Horgan, 2009). She decided to auction her entire wardrobe; this shows the consumer's

judgment and decision-making as it helped her raise over $16,000 and pay off her debt. Rebecca

took pennies worth $9,000 to Smeath’s office. She repaid the debt in the most inconvenient and

annoying way, what Smeath did to her. After the auction, Rebecca showed up at Suze's wedding

wearing the bridesmaid dress, which she acquired from the homeless woman by trading it off

with other clothes. She reconciled with Suze as Suze and Tarq got married. The film winds up as
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Suze and Tarq drive off after the wedding ceremony, and Rebecca walks down the street. The

mannequins signal her, but as she resists their attempts, they applaud her. Rebecca finds Luke in

front of her, and he presents her with the green scarf. Luke and Rebecca kiss on the street, and

she narrates how giving up shopping has given her time for other things, including her

relationship with Luke.

Reference

Horgan, P. (2009). Confessions of A Shopaholic [Film]. New York; Touchstone Pictures, Jerry

Bruckheimer Films. https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Shopaholic-P-J-

Hogan/dp/B004MWSUXG