Was anticipating this movie since it was announced that there is gonna be a movie adaptation of the best-selling Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. And when it finally arrived in Malaysia, I doubt that I will even get to watch it due to me being busy with a thing called life (midterms, grad project, assignments) but when P called me up and ask if I wanna watch the movie with her (and G), immediately I said yes without further thought, and when the day comes, I realised that I have yet to do much about my project and I only studied up to chapter 3 (out of 7 chapters that will be covered for the midterm) of client/server but still, a promise is a promise and it’s meant to be kept. By the time the movie starts, all that worries are long forgotten….

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Spoilers ahead….read at your own risk.

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The Movie

Becky Bloomwood is a writer for a certain gardening magazine (in the book, she was introduced as a financial journalist who has the penchant for designer clothes and constantly spends more than her credit limit, oh the irony). Being a fan of fashion and all, she decided to apply for a writer position in Allete magazine but too bad for her the post has been taken by a “long-legged-bitch” (played by xx of Popular fame – no wonder she looked familiar). However, all hope is not lost – she was told that by getting a job at a certain financial magazine, she’ll be very well on the way to be a writer at Allete and she did just that. It would seem that the job interview wasn’t a success (even though she purchased the expensive green scarf using funny means) but her letter to the editor seems to impressed a certain Luke Brandon. Too bad for her that the letter was meant for Allete and her hate-mail filled with insults almost ended up on the desk of Allete’s editor (lol). Anyways, she got the job at the financial magazine and not long after that she fell for Luke (awwwww…..Hugh Dancy’s hawwwwttt).

The Book

The movie somewhat had a different take from the book. In the book, Becky is a financial journalist in London who met Luke at a financial conference (it was a funny encounter of course) and Luke wasn’t working under anyone; he was his own boss and he owned Brandon Communications (which of course doesn’t exist until the end in the movie version). They fell in love (Book 1), moved to Manhattan (Book 2), got married (Book 3) and not to mention that Becky found her long-lost sister which turned out not to be her sister after all (Book 4), and the latest, they have a baby daughter (which thankfully isn’t named Prada or Gucci) (Book 5).

My Thoughts

The movie is of course, BASED on the Sophie Kinsella’s hit series and it does not have to follow every inch of the novel. Due to that, I thought that perhaps this movie is gonna suck but instead, we get an improv version of the book on the silver screen and it was hilarious to the core. The running-gag in the movie got me laughing to no end – Becky is indeed of Finnish descent (in the movie) but she claimed that she’s fluent in that language. When she finally able to put her ability to good use on a group of Nokia executives, the result was simply hilarious but heck, “Scandinavians simply love her” as one of the executives said. Lol.

All in all, the casts were great especially Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy (for some reason, I have always imagined Kate Hudson and Luke Wilson for the roles of Becky Bloomwood and Luke Brandon respectively). Love the Brit accent! Viva la Brits!

The Author

Sophie Kinsella is also the author for several non-Shopaholic novels – Can You Keep a Secret? (there’s a rumour saying that a movie will be made based on this book starring Kate Hudson. Hmm…), The Undomestic Goddess and the latest, Remember Me?.

Occasionally, she also writes under the name Madeleine Wickham which is her REAL name (Sophie Kinsella is a pseudonym she uses for Shopaholic as well as her other novels). 

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For more info on Sophie Kinsella and her books, click HERE.