Rebecca: A rather pointless remake

Rebecca (2020) • View trailer

Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sexual candor, fleeting nudity and dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang 

Just as every generation gets its own version of The Three Musketeers, we seem destined to get a fresh take on Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca every few decades.

 

The new Mrs. de Winter (Lily James, seated), wholly unfamiliar with her new aristocratic
surroundings, is easy prey for the waspish, scheming housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers
(Kristin Scott Thomas).

It’s hard to top Alfred Hitchcock’s first crack at the novel, back in 1940. For my money, it’s the only adaptation that looks right, thanks to George Barnes ominously moody monochromatic cinematography (which won a well-deserved Academy Award). This is a truly gothic tale; it requires black-and-white cinematography, to highlight all the dark corners and foreboding shadows of one of literature’s most infamous estates.

 

No fewer than six television adaptations followed, the most notable arriving via PBS; in 1979, on Mystery, and in 1997, on Masterpiece Theatre. Although both are excellent, with terrific casts, they’re too “pretty,” thanks to the color cinematography.

 

The same is true of this newest adaptation, which arrives as a Netflix original. The cast is strong, with excellent performances from Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas and Armie Hammer. But Laurie Rose’s opulent cinematography once again is too lush; his outdoor vistas — particularly a breathtaking establishing shot of a beach, from a vantage point out in the ocean — have the striking, painterly quality of a postcard.

 

This would be fine, if Rose supplied sufficient contrast with the mansion’s many interior sequences. But he doesn’t; nor does director Ben Wheatley seem sufficiently interested in adhering to the story’s gothic atmosphere. He and his scripters — Jane Goldman, Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse — fail to understand that the Manderley estate is as much a character as its inhabitants.

 

That said, this film is true to the story’s 1930s setting, which is equally essential. 

 

Following a fleeting prologue, during which James gives us the novel’s famous opening line — “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” — the story emerges as a lengthy flashback.

 

She stars as a young woman — never granted a name — introduced as a “paid companion” to the insufferably condescending Mrs. Van Hopper (Ann Dowd). They’re vacationing in Monte Carlo; the young woman is reminded constantly of her lower social status by her mean-spirited patron, who spends considerable time sharing gossip with equally vacuous female aristocrats.

Military Wives: Be sure to enlist!

Military Wives (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.5.20

Director Peter Cattaneo makes adorable feel-good films that cleverly blend light, character-driven humor with social commentary that often pokes at the British class system.

Lisa (Sharon Horgan, left) can't quite believe it when, instead of just allowing their group
to sing a song, Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas) insists on beginning with high-falutin'
vocal exercises.

He put himself on the map with 1997’s The Full Monty, and if his subsequent films didn’t live up to that big-screen debut — 2001’s Lucky Break and 2008’s The Rocker — it’s only because he set the bar so high the first time.

Well, Military Wives — available via Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — hits all the markers that made Monty so entertaining. The cherry on top is that Rosanne Flynn and Rachel Tunnard’s script is inspired by deeply moving actual events: a poignant (and well-timed) reminder that people from disparate backgrounds can accomplish marvelous things when working together.

The setting is 2010, at England’s (fictitious) Flitcroft military base. (Production actually took place at North Yorkshire’s Catterick Garrison, the world’s largest British army base.) The ongoing war in Afghanistan has just entered the “surge” phase, with increasing numbers of Allied troops being deployed overseas; this includes many of the active-duty soldiers at Flitcroft.

Their wives and girlfriends, left behind on base, have limited options for distracting themselves from worst-case fears. Kate (Kristin Scott Thomas), wife of the company commander, decides to take a more active hand in gathering the women for group activities. By doing so, she steps on the toes of Lisa (Sharon Horgan), the base’s newly appointed Social Committee chair.

They’re a classic case of oil and water, destined never to mix. Kate is a condescending, high-minded aristocrat who throws her status around; Scott Thomas delivers just the right note of smug entitlement. The earthier, working-class Lisa has long enjoyed being “just one of the girls,” and she’s not about to let her new “promotion” get in the way of that.

Kate wants to organize productive, formally structured activities; Lisa — and the rest of the women — prefer informal morning coffee klatches and wine-fueled evenings.

Tomb Raider: Stylish thrills, chills and spills

Tomb Raider (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and breif profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.16.18

Most big-screen adaptations of video games have been an eye-rolling waste of time, but Lara Croft always had an advantage: She was created, back in 1996, as the kick-ass female answer to Indiana Jones ... and we all know how well that franchise turned out.

Having run afoul of some young Hong Kong thugs determined to rob her, Lara (Alicia
Vikander) evades pursuit in the most flamboyant manner at hand.

Lara is similarly alive and well, in her newest cinema outing. Alicia Vikander is perfect for the part — radiating intelligence, spunk, resourcefulness and the never-say-die stamina of the Energizer Bunny — and this film should please both fans and mainstream newcomers. Norwegian director Roar Uthaug has delivered a rip-snortin’ adventure with just enough back-story and character development to mildly stretch the acting chops of a cast that treats this popcorn nonsense with respect.

Indeed, it’s marvelous to note that the current generation of upper-echelon Hollywood talent is willing to swing between serious fare and light-hearted thrills. Jennifer Lawrence continues to honor her X-Men and Hunger Games roots; Viola Davis popped up in Suicide Squad; Eddie Redmayne has embraced the Harry Potter franchise; and now Vikander has become the new Lara Croft. They’re all Oscar winners, and more power to them.

Just as every generation seems to need a new and youthful Spider-Man, Lara has been re-imagined not quite a generation after Angelina Jolie first donned the boots, shorts and tank top back in 2001 and ’03. Vikander adds a playful sparkle to the role — Jolie, good as she was, always felt a bit too grim — and this film’s script touches all the essential franchise ingredients.

We must remember that Lara is a tragic heroine, and Vikander deftly handles that duality. Lara’s cheerful exterior can’t quite mask the pain behind her eyes; as this story opens, her beloved father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), has been missing for seven years. He had a habit of swanning off on unspecified “missions” that had little to do with the stuffy corporate stuff typical of his public face; he never returned from the last one.

Refusing to believe him dead, resisting entreaties from Croft Holdings solicitor Yaffe (Derek Jacobi) and business executive Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas) to accept the corporate control that would make her financially secure, Lara instead lives hand-to-mouth as an underpaid East London bike courier. This position certainly sharpens her reflexes; it also leads to the film’s first way-cool action sequence, in the form of a captivating bicycle race assembled slickly by editors Stuart Baird, Tom Harrison-Read and Michael Tronick.

Darkest Hour: A shining achievement

Darkest Hour (2017) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and war sequences
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.29.17

Even knowing the outcome, thanks to the obvious historical record and ongoing pop culture reminders, director Joe Wright and scripter Anthony McCarten maintain a remarkable level of stomach-clenching suspense during every moment of this enthralling drama.

As Elizabeth Layton (Lily James) pauses attentively, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman)
parses words in order to place the desired emphasis on what will be one of the most
important speeches of his career.

Scene by scene, amid political clashes and confrontations, we endure palpable panic: Are our memories faulty? Will it all go wrong?

No, of course not. But the total, we-are-there immersion is quite impressive.

Darkest Hour takes place during a tempestuous several weeks in the spring of 1940: from May 10, when 65-year-old, hard-drinking Winston Churchill is named to replace Neville Chamberlain as the British Prime Minister; to June 4, in the aftermath of the Dunkirk miracle that gave additional weight to Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” speech in the House of Commons.

Fans of this period in British history are enjoying an embarrassment of riches; we’ve now experienced these events from strikingly different points of view, thanks to summer’s Dunkirk, television’s The Crown and now Wright’s Darkest Hour.

As depicted by McCarten — a double Oscar nominee, as scripter and producer of 2014’s The Theory of Everything — Churchill’s rise to that galvanic speech was anything but assured, and Chamberlain was far from disgraced and impotent, after being shunted aside. He and Viscount Halifax (née Edward Frederick Lindley Wood) remained relentless in their quest for appeasement by offering a treaty to Hitler, even as — particularly as — Western Europe’s countries fell, like a row of dominoes, against the Nazi assault.

And Chamberlain’s influence was considerable, as he still controlled the Conservative half of the House of Commons, all of the members fully prepared — in blinkered, knee-jerk fashion — to vote party over conscience, thereby stripping Churchill of his new position. (And boy, doesn’t that resonate these days, on this side of the pond!)

The political infighting is both fascinating and horrifying, but the film’s true power comes from Gary Oldman’s sublime portrayal of Churchill: one of those rare performances that is so thorough, so all-consuming, that it ceases to be acting. As far as I’m concerned, Wright and McCarten somehow found the means to resurrect Churchill, so he could star in his own story.

The Invisible Woman: What the Dickens?

The Invisible Woman (2013) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rating: R, and quite ludicrously, for mild sexual content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.17.14

Consider the irony: Actor/director Ralph Fiennes’ new film about Charles Dickens, a storytelling craftsman, is undone by a maddeningly clumsy script.

During a late-night social gathering, Charles Dickens (Ralph Fiennes) entertains the
guests by hypnotizing Frances Ternan (Kristin Scott Thomas, far left), much to the
delight of her daughers, from left, Nelly (Felicity Jones) and Maria (Perdita Weeks).
Nelly, however, is far more captivated by Dickens himself, than by his little party trick.

However authentic the 19th century setting, however lavish the costumes, however fascinating that so many of the English estates and countryside settings seem not to have changed, it remains impossible to become involved with this narrative. Abi Morgan’s screenplay is slow, difficult to follow, and needlessly enigmatic. Essential details are glossed over or rendered so subtly as to be overlooked.

Morgan already has demonstrated an unconventional approach to biographical material; her screenplay for The Iron Lady was less about Margaret Thatcher, and more about the nature of grief, and the cruelty of old age. Viewers wanting to learn something about the career that shaped and defined Thatcher walked away disappointed; folks are likely to do the same after enduring Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman.

The title refers to Ellen (Nelly) Ternan, who in 1857, at the age of 18, came to the attention of Dickens during a Manchester performance of The Frozen Deep, a play that he had co-written with his good friend Wilkie Collins. Nelly and her two older sisters, Maria and Fanny, were at that time following in the acting footsteps of their mother, Frances Ternan, who had achieved modest fame on the London stage.

Dickens, then 45, was married and the father of nine children. He nonetheless fell in love with Nelly, an arrangement that her mother likely “tolerated” both because of the celebrated author’s stature, and because her youngest daughter had scant acting talent. Besides which, Victorian-era actresses generally were regarded as only one short step above prostitutes ... so it could be argued that Nelly didn’t have much of a reputation to protect.

But Dickens did. Despite the very public manner in which he disavowed his wife and mother of their many children — publishing a letter in his own magazine, Household Words, which blamed her for their estrangement — he nonetheless managed to keep his relationship with Nelly below public (and press) radar.

Dickens and Nelly remained lovers and companions until the author’s death in 1870, at which point — and here’s the fascinating part — the 31-year-old Nelly, still looking quite youthful, “re-invented” herself as a much younger woman. While staying with her sister Maria in Oxford, she caught the eye of an undergraduate named George Wharton. They eventually married — he was 24, she a clandestine 36 — and settled in Margate, where they had two children and ran a boys’ school.

When anybody asked about her unusually extensive library of Dickens’ works, she’d claim that the author had been a family friend when she was a little girl.

(One assumes that Nelly eventually confessed at least part of the truth to her husband, when her advancing age became more obvious, and at a point when their relationship could have withstood the revelation.)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Quite a catch!

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for mild sexual content, brief violence and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.30.12


The British film industry’s gift for gentle whimsy is as inherently cultural as French cinema’s way with erotic comedies: in both cases utterly captivating, and absolutely impossible to reproduce on our shores (although, goodness knows, plenty of people have tried).

When Britain's sporting anglers pitch a headline-making fit over the notion of
shipping 50,000 wild salmon to a foreign country, Fred (Ewan McGregor) and
Harriet (Emily Blunt) wonder whether farm-raised substitutes could serve the
same purpose. The problem, Fred fears, is that such commercially bred fish
might not possess the necessary spawning instinct.

Our British cousins have a knack for making fun of themselves in a way that’s both stylish and just barbed enough to demonstrate a level of sophisticated method to the madness. By comparison, American filmmakers inevitably seem crass and adolescent. The Brits give us Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love, Actually; we give them The Hangover and — soon — The Three Stooges.

Hmmm.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a charmer very much in the vein of Four Weddings, Notting Hill, The Closer You Get, Pirate Radio and numerous other examples that leap to mind. Equal parts romantic comedy, environmental fantasy, faith-based parable and shrewd political commentary, scripter Simon Beaufoy’s handling of Paul Torday’s novel — which I absolutely must read — is brought to the screen with unerring precision by director Lasse Hallström.

Hallström, you will recall, is the sharp-eyed observer of human nature who burst on the scene back in 1985, with My Life As a Dog, made in his native Sweden. He followed that hit with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, The Shipping News and the under-appreciated An Unfinished Life, among others. You’ll note a common theme of misfit characters existing just slightly outside mainstream society, often trying to make their way in a world — or among customs — they’re simply not equipped to understand.

That’s certainly the case with Dr. Alfred “Fred” Jones (Ewan McGregor), an exacting fisheries expert happily ensconced within his own little world, deep in the far-flung bowels of an obscure branch of the British government. You just know that all the pens in his desk drawer face in the same direction, and that’s true ... but he also keeps a collapsible fly rod at hand, which he uses each morning to hurl an inked casting weight, dart-like, toward a picture of his stuffy boss (Conleth Hill). Black smudges attest to frequent bull’s-eyes.

Fred’s comfortable, well-constructed world is interrupted one day by an e-mail from Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt), acting as a representative for the enormously wealthy Yemeni Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked). The sheikh maintains a massive sporting estate in Scotland, specifically so he can indulge his passion for salmon fishing. But that isn’t enough: He wants to work an environmental miracle in his home country, bringing water to the inhospitable desert and jump-starting an agricultural Renaissance, hopefully to promote peace and spiritual reflection in a land ravaged by conflict.

And, along the way, introducing salmon for his own pleasure.

Would “Dr. Alfred” be willing to act as a consultant?

Sarah's Key: Unlocking a grim past

Sarah's Key (2010) • View trailer for Sarah's Key
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang


Curiosity, we all eventually learn, can be highly dangerous.

Sarah's Key, adapted by director Gilles Paquet-Brenner from French author Tatiana de Rosnay's novel — which occupied the New York Times bestseller list for 120 weeks — is a melancholy, deeply moving but at times unbearably sad drama. De Rosnay's story reminds us that the past, particularly the uncomfortable past, never really goes away ... nor should it.

Seeking the sense of past horrors she cannot wholly grasp, Julia (Kristin Scott
Thomas) visits the Parisian Holocaust Memorial, where she hopes to, in the
words of a man she meets there, "get away from the figures and statistics, to
give a face and reality to each of these lives."

Paquet-Brenner's adaptation of this story — he co-wrote the script with Serge Joncour — is fueled by two unforgettable performances: the always magnificent Kristin Scott Thomas, as a modern woman increasingly obsessed by her search for truth; and Mélusine Mayance, absolutely riveting as young Sarah.

And while these characters and events are fictitious, they're set against a horrific historic event — the notorious 1942 Vel' d'Hiv round-up in France — that exposes yet another Holocaust atrocity probably not too well known in this country.

It's simply impossible to wrap our modern, sheltered, comfortable brains around the stark reality of what the French did to their own citizens; we can only shake our heads with disbelief. And yet, as Scott Thomas' Julia Jarmond says, at one point, how can we know what we would have done, under identical circumstances, if given a choice between complicity and likely death?

Armchair bravery is easy. God forbid it ever should be put to such a ghastly test.

Paquet-Brenner's film occupies two timelines. The first opens on July 16, 1942, as waves of French policemen and civil servants — cooperating with an order from their Nazi occupiers — begin arresting what ultimately becomes more than 13,000 Jewish citizens. Sarah Starzynski (Mayance) is playing with her younger brother in their shared bedroom, when the authoritative knock comes at the door; thinking swiftly, the girl locks the little boy into a concealed cupboard — the "secret hiding place" — and cautions him to remain quiet, promising to come back and let him out later.

Sarah and her parents are hauled off to the nearby Vélodrome d'Hiver, where they join thousands of other detainees stuffed into the filthy, smelly, unsanitary confines of a structure never intended to hold so many people. Sarah develops a fever and falls ill; nobody can help her.

A few days later, now quite sick, the girl and her parents are relocated to the Drancy internment camp, where children are separated from their parents. Despite her illness, Sarah never loses her grip on the precious key to that cupboard.

The plight of Sarah and her family unfolds in stages, intercut with contemporary scenes that follow Julia, an expatriate American journalist living in Paris with her husband, Bertrand (Frédéric Pierrot), and their teenage daughter. Julia works for a high-tone magazine; she's given the opportunity to craft a lengthy feature story on the Vel' d'Hiv raids. She relishes this chance to shine a fresh spotlight on historic behavior so appalling that French President Jacques Chirac eventually publicly apologized for it, in 1995.

Easy Virtue: Let's misbehave!

Easy Virtue (2008) • View trailer for Easy Virtue
Four stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for sexual candor and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.18.09
Buy DVD: Easy Virtue • Buy Blu-Ray: Easy Virtue [Blu-ray]


Stephan Elliott, the sassy Aussie filmmaker long absent from the screen — and still fondly remembered for his breakout hit, 1994's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert — has returned with a project perfectly suited to his talents: a bubbly re-imagining of Noel Coward's Easy Virtue.

Although the characters and primary plot elements are retained from the play Coward wrote back in 1924, the tone and various relationship dynamics — not to mention Elliott's directorial approach — owe much more to Robert Altman's Gosford Park, the delightful 2001 blend of Agatha Christie and TV's Upstairs, Downstairs.

While trying to build a rapoort with her new mother-in-law, Larita (Jessica
Biel, right) unwittingly gives yet another opening to Mrs. Whittaker (Kristin
Scott Thomas) during their chat in the family's greenhouse ... at which point
the older woman learns that her son's new wife is allergic to flowers. Mrs.
Whittaker's weak spot, in turn, is her dog...

Elliott's take on Easy Virtue has a similar brew of arch one-liners, devastating putdowns and biting observations about condescending British aristocrats who wield their birthrights like blunt instruments. This atmospheric shift — Elliott co-wrote the screenplay with Sheridan Jobbins — results in a film that's more breezily entertaining than Coward's play, which, despite its deliciously scathing social commentary, audiences at the time found as cold and foreboding as Wuthering Heights.

Indeed, the austere play's only previous trip to the big screen came courtesy of no less a talent than Alfred Hitchcock, who made a faithful silent adaptation in 1927. The famed director remained unsatisfied with this film for the rest of his career, no doubt because the absence of sound made it nearly impossible to do justice to Coward's rapier wit and felicity of language. (But since Hitchcock was forced to compensate, he still left several strong impressions with his largely silent scene constructions.)

Elliott gives us modern viewers a heroine to admire in Larita (Jessica Biel), a sexy and avant-garde American introduced as she scandalizes 1930s Britain by winning the race at Monte Carlo, only to be disqualified because she concealed her gender. But all is not lost at that finish line, as she attracts the eye of young John Whittaker (Ben Barnes, appropriately callow); the result is love at first sight, and the two quickly wed.

Her adventurous spirit and scandal-hued lifestyle not-withstanding, Larita recoils from her next test: meeting John's family — and, she hopes, being accepted by them — at their quintessential British ancestral mansion and estate.

John does his best to warn her, and Larita always is up for a challenge ... but even she wilts beneath the contemptuous hauteur of John's mother, the imperious Mrs. Whittaker (Kristin Scott Thomas).

(Considering Hitchcock's fondness for vicious, domineering mother figures in films such as Rebecca, Notorious, Psycho and Marnie, one can see why he'd have been intrigued by Noel Coward's Mrs. Whittaker.)

I've Loved You So Long: Love hurts

I've Loved You So Long (2008) • View trailer for I've Loved You So Long
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, and much too harshly, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.27.09
Buy DVD: I've Loved You So Long • Buy Blu-Ray: I've Loved You So Long [Blu-ray]

Writer/director Philippe Claudel's I've Loved You So Long makes an intriguing companion piece to Anne Hathaway's Academy Award-nominated performance in Rachel Getting Married ... but I'm not sure anybody could survive such a double-feature.

Both films deal with the attempt to re-knit the frayed threads of an estranged family, while also exploring the notions of redemption and contrition ... and the guilt carried by those who know they're damaged goods, and haven't yet learned how to forgive themselves.

Michael (Laurent Grévill) pays the aloof Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) a
compliment; she wants to believe him, isn't quite sure she can, but nonetheless
smiles in embarrassment and nervously brushes her hair aside. This film is
filled with small moments, all of which bu ild into a compelling stury of one
woman's struggle to move past her pain.

But whereas Rachel is a straightforward study of a fractured family dynamic during the tempestuous weekend revolving around a wedding celebration, I've Loved You So Long is a much quieter picture, with a mystery at its core, that takes place during a much longer period.

Quieter, perhaps, but no less painful.

We first meet Juliette — Kristin Scott Thomas, her impeccable French once again on display — in an airport waiting lounge. She twitches and smokes nervously, the cigarette held almost like a protective weapon, her wary eyes displaying the terrified uncertainty of a forest creature poised to bolt from an as-yet unseen predator.

Outside, a younger woman (Elsa Zylberstein, as Léa) roars up in her car, aware of being late, and races into the terminal. Even without dialogue, we understand that Léa felt it important to be on time, and worries that her tardiness may have consequences.

The two women meet, their faltering greeting suggesting neither intimacy nor familiarity. We therefore blink upon discovering that they're sisters.

The details emerge slowly; some crucial information literally arrives only as the film concludes, and the screen fades to black.

Juliette has just been released from a 15-year prison term. During that time, Léa has grown from a doting teenage younger sister into an accomplished college professor, wife and mother. The crime for which Juliette was sentenced hangs between them, but remains unspoken; it was, however, horrific enough to have made their parents sever all ties with Juliette, and insist that Léa have no contact with her.

But now, as an adult, Léa has found her own voice and obeyed her conscience; she wants to re-establish the sibling relationship. And so — with the reluctant agreement of her husband, Luc (Serge Hazanavicius) — she has invited Juliette to live with them, for as long as it's necessary to regain her bearings, find a job and resume her place in the world.

Luc isn't happy with the arrangement, but he's willing to accept it ... to a point.

Confessions of a Shopaholic: No account

Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) • View trailer for Confessions of a Shopaholic
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.20.09
Buy DVD: Confessions of a Shopaholic • Buy Blu-Ray: Confessions of a Shopaholic (Two-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]

I tried to imagine, while leaving the theater with such a rancid taste in my mouth, whether I'd have loathed the heroine of Confessions of a Shopaholic even if the film had been released at a time when the entire U.S. economy weren't tanking.

Oh, yes, I decided.

After indulging in another spending binge, Rebecca (Isla Fisher, center in light
cap) is confronted by "Shopaholics Anonymous" group leader Miss Korch
(Wendie Malick, holding Fisher's arm), who insists on the "tough love"
measure of forcing our heroine to donate everything she just purchased to a
charity outlet. Naturally, this will include a bridesmaid's dress for Rebecca's
best friend's wedding, layering even more "comic tension" into this big-screen
adaptation of Sophia Kinsella's popular book.

Absolutely.

That said, I cannot imagine what was going through the minds of everybody at Disney, to have made them believe that filmgoers wouldn't revolt at the very sight of this thumpingly laughless tribute to conspicuous, debt-laden con- sumption.

Intelligent people — those with a shred of perception — understand that some stereotypes wear out their welcomes; some even become offensive over time. Al Jolson's blackface routine in The Jazz Singer would elicit riots today. Dudley Moore's cuddly bazillionaire in 1981's Arthur was pretty much the last "lovable souse" that Hollywood dared put on the big screen.

And, let's face it, now is not the time to expect us to embrace this film's ditzy-but-good-hearted-deep-down Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), who spends herself into multiple calamities during the course of this clumsy, gaspingly ill-conceived attempt at a romantic comedy.

"Desperate" is the word that comes to mind, when scrutinizing this ill-conceived flick. That single word covers Fisher's performance, director P.J. Hogan's efforts to wrest a few giggles from the lifeless script, and Disney's damn-the-torpedos decision to punish us with the wretched result.

Granted, Sophia Kinsella's book — and its sequels — obviously struck a chord with a subset of readers: most specifically those who identified with a financially challenged heroine who couldn't fathom credit card interest penalties if her life depended on it.

But scripters Tracey Jackson, Tim Firth and Kayla Alpert retained only the basic concept while strip-mining Kinsella's novel, and moving it from England to the United States (a serious miscalculation, right off the top).

Somehow, they left all the charm behind. What emerges, under Hogan's ham-fisted guidance, is just this side of a train wreck.