Simple, small beuaty...

Shopgirl left me with a feeling similar to one I had when I saw Lost in Translation and Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. In all three films, my judgement of the value and my enjoyement of the film turned quite quickly and late. For a majority of all three films, I saw them as a lightweight, nicely made film for most of the movie and then, at the climactic scenes - or just before - my idea changed, and all three became wonderful.

In Shopgirl, we see Claire Danes's main character open the film as a thoroughly unassuming salesgirl in Saks Fifth Avenue (who paid a boatload to change the location of the story from Nieman Marcus in the novella). She has no real love life, no job prospects, nothing to speak of in her life. Until she meets two men at about the same time. One is Jeremy - slacker epotimized, slovenly, drifting, without prospects, and the other is Ray - millionaire divorcee who flies from Seattle to LA on a whim. Neither man is right for her, but she makes her choice and stays with that relationship - that we learn quite quickly is doomed - for much of the movie, passing the other man off with a phone call.

By the end of the film, she has undergone pain and growth, learning - according to the film, at least - what is important about love. And she has found the man of her dreams.

In writing about the film, I find myself having difficulty capturing the simple beauty of the performances of Steve Martin and Claire Danes in the two lead roles. Both play perfect versions of characters with great emotional depth, feinting toward each other and away with equal skill and incredulty of the other's true feelings, and in the process leaving us with a truly believable picture of a relationship between them. The acting is superb, and the film does little to distract us from this pairing which dominates the film.

It is in the small moments between Martin and Danes that the film truly shines, showing depth to their relationship, depth that neither is quite able to capture or develop as characters. When the inevitable comes between the two, it seems natural and real because of the groundwork that both have laid before.

The only sour notes in the film come from the transformation of Danes's other beau - Jason Schwartzmann's slacker turned success because of an offhand comment made by Danes early in the film. We catch glimpses of his transformation, but his ugly duckling emerged so fully formed from his changes that we are left stunned at what a man will do to win the love of a good woman. My wife found the transformation quite believable and questioned only Schwartzmann's financial wherewithall by the end of the film. I found the change harder to swallow.

Neither of us liked the brief dalliance by Schwartzmann's character with the fourth lead - and a throwaway character in my eyes - played by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras.

All in all, I loved Shopgirl, but from waiting even a few days to write this review, I find the the beauty is fading quickly in my mind, slipping away like the most ephemeral of dreams. I don't know that the film will have a great staying power the way that Martin's other love of mine LA Story will, but for those couple of hours, I was enchanted.