Steve Martin controls the universe

Shopgirl exists on the heels of Lost in Translation, though a little more happens in this one. In fact, I'd like to see a wacky crossover (possibly a vs. film) with Bill Murray from Lost in Translation and Steve Martin from Shopgirl, lamenting about the one that got away. This film was emotionally resonant, and I wanted the characters to suceed. Mirabelle, played by the hard-to-find-as-of-late Claire Danes, seems verging on the edge of the way too cute to be a real human being character that we've seen in every romantic comedy, but she never falls into that. In fact, the whole film has these cute, off-beat, "real people" moments that I never fully bought, but at the same time enjoyed watching. Perhaps thats because Jason Schwartzman is fucking awesome. I can't get enough of this guy. He lives a life of off-beat, while still making one moment flow into the next so well that I did buy it. And the film does an excellent job of making you unsure who will be "right" for Mirabelle. Why do we keep cutting back to Jeremy (Schwartzman)? How "out of the picutre" is he? Now, obviously, since films don't include unecessary information, we know that he will come back, but I kept thinking it was going to be the cause of the film's conflict. But he has his own story going on, and it does the job well, of proving to us that two people in a relationship are the main characters in their own movie, rather than one bing a secondary character in the other's.

That being said, there are moments of awkwardness that don't seem to stem from the characters' awkwardness. Actors should feel comfortable being unfcomfortable, and that they didn't always seem that way made me wonder if perhaps the director Anand Tucker is not so much an actor's director. He did an interesting job of transitioning very gracefully in many scenes. Took liberties the way a movie (especially in our age of near-flawless CG) reprisents reality. And that was an undercurrent, also, in how the characters lived their lives (alone, or in pairs). There was a certain grace that resulted in a lack of dialogue, when action would suffice. Or "action" as an internal-conflict story has it.

So, yeah, I certainly dug it. I love Steve Martin and I enjoyed his book, back when it came out. And I like quirky romance, and quirky people, in general. This film reprisented both well. Mad props.