E Kaur

Painful to watch at times and massively undersells the book. So many key details that make "Confessions of a Shopaholic" a great book were taken out and replaced, with the movie adding none of the value back in return. The most important missing element is the immense guilt following the massive built up high that Rebecca feels in her shopping process. She was supposed to be hiding all of this from everyone and dodging from her problems at every turn, which built up her inevitable downfall in the book. Instead, Rebecca immediately tells her friends and family about her debt so that whole element is lost. The movie completely erased the raw moments of the book which made it so special, and made the whole thing a bubbly story that doesn't scratch the surface of the turmoil Rebecca went through in the book. The fact that the story went from a hard working but uninterested British financial journalist who has a shopping addiction to an American girl who faces little consequence to her actions and just gets everything handed to her (the way she miraculously landed her job with no prior financial experience) really just destroyed the authenticity and relatability of the book. The love-hate relationship and competitive nature between Luke and Rebecca was just not there, because of the aforementioned changes to the Rebecca's character, there can be no competition between a ditz and the genius Luke Brandon. In the book Rebecca was capable all along, she just had to realize it, and she overcomes her self esteem issues towards the end by debating Brandon on TV and the novel solidifies it with his concession. Only once Rebecca has shown that she can pull her weight, perhaps even more than Brandon, does their romance truly blossom. Some weird and unnecessary details were changed too like Tarquin and Suze getting married instead of being cousins(?) and the merge of Alicia (antagonist) and Brandon's initial girlfriend. Also why was Derek Smeath genuinely evil? The book concluded that he was really a nice guy who Rebecca just feared because she associated him with owning up to her shopping addiction. Overall this movie was a disappointment. (except for the magnificent wardrobes of the background "boring" and "evil" characters. So posh. Alicia's ballroom dress was spectacular. Rebecca's TV dress was good too.)