"Confessions of a Shopaholic": Keep shopping if you're looking for a good movie

There's only one reason to watch the silly chick-lit-flick "Confessions of a Shopaholic," and it's not the clothes, which are mostly ugly, or the wit, which is mostly absent. It is the great Kristin Scott Thomas, who plays a French fashion-magazine editrix named Alette. She sweeps through the film with such presence you can practically smell her Chanel perfume, making dismissive gestures and tossing off her delicately accented lines like they're bonbons she's scorning. Offered a piece of cake, she accepts but then barks "TINY!" to her hapless hostess, who tremblingly serves her an inchlong sliver.

Why is nobody making a film that unites this character and Miranda Priestly, the editor from hell in "The Devil Wears Prada" played so deliciously by Meryl Streep? Why aren't these two characters in every movie? Why did P.J. Hogan, director of "Shopaholic," ever let Scott Thomas walk out of camera range? Why don't I have any terrified underlings? None of these questions have good answers; neither, alas, does "Shopaholic," which never makes the case for its own existence.

Surely the producers of this film must have wondered about the wisdom of releasing a frothy tale of shopping obsession at this particular stage of the economic collapse; nonetheless, here "Shopaholic" is, like a champagne-drunk guest at a funeral. Based on the likable if predictable series of novels by Sophie Kinsella, the movie is the story of Becky Bloomwood (Isla Fisher), a sweet, clueless 20-something journalist who never met a price tag she didn't like. In the movie (which transforms Becky from a Brit to an American), she runs up more than $16,000 in credit-card debt, and along the way falls in love with her handsome boss (Hugh Dancy).

Though the button-eyed Fisher is a charming screwball comedian, Becky's written here as a babbling ninny and it's hard to imagine what actress could succeed in a role that mostly requires her to totter around on high heels and shriek whenever bills are discussed. It's hard to sympathize with Becky's cartoonish problems, nor is there enough wit on display to transcend the situation. "A man will never love you or treat you as well as a store," she says, in her little-girl voice, and it's more cringeworthy than funny.

Hogan, who demonstrated with "Muriel's Wedding" and "My Best Friend's Wedding" that he can make witty comedies, occasionally finds a groove: a few scenes in which store-window mannequins talk to Becky have an imaginative kick, and he's cast the supporting roles well. (Among them: Joan Cusack — though isn't she a little young? — and John Goodman as Becky's parents, Krysten Ritter as Becky's concerned roommate, Wendie Malick as a scary-tough support-group leader.) But overall "Shopaholic" seems to be standing in an empty station, waving a futile hand at a train long gone.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com