Shopgirl is immeasurably better, not least of all because you believe these characters actually exist (although they've clearly been embellished for comic effect). Steve Martin, who wrote both the novella and screenplay on which Shopgirl is based, prefers to observe rather than overthink his characters. Where Elizabethtown pretends to have the meaning of life, Shopgirl hones in on a few telling details, then allows audiences to fill in the rest.

After spending two hours with Mirabelle (Claire Danes), we know none of the superficial details that might come out over dinner on a first date—the books she reads, the music she likes, and so on. And yet, from her faraway look as she sits perched on her elbows behind the glove counter at Saks to the way she flops down on the futon in her living room after a particularly exasperating first date, we understand everything we need to know about her time in L.A. All three of Shopgirl's central performances feel genuinely lived-in, as if the characters' lives continue when the cameras aren't around.

We hardly even need the narration to tell us, "What Mirabelle needs is an omniscient voice to say, 'This one has value,'" or the intrusive emotional cues of Barrington Pheloung's score, which seems to be constantly overcompensating for subtext that would be perfectly self-evident in silence. In keeping with its source material, Shopgirl feels more like a collection of poignant little moments than a traditional narrative, but that works in its favor. I wish the movie had been directed by Sofia Coppola, and watching it, certain stylistic choices suggest that Anand Tucker must have felt the same way (it's something of a relief, however, that it's Martin, not the comparatively stone-faced Bill Murray, playing Ray Porter).

Danes is a jewel in the lead, perfectly capturing a young woman passively waiting for her life to happen to her rather than taking the reins. Naturally, Martin gives himself the meatier of the male roles as the debonair divorcé competing with Jason Schwartzman's self-absorbed young suitor for Mirabelle's affections, but it's a sign of Martin's maturity that he's willing to expose the gray areas in Porter's personality. This is still an older gentleman's fantasy (the movie hardly even blinks at the age difference); however, though Shopgirl may have started with one of Martin's dirty-old-man daydreams, it's ultimately Mirabelle's story, which is more than can be said for how Woody Allen might have told it.

[as featured on Premiere.com]