Rebecca Bloomwood is a trendy 25 year old journalist, who has a boring job in a financial paper, lives in fabulous Fulham with her best friend Suze, and is absolutely addicted to shopping. The problem is, she has a huge overdraft and has been receiving threatening letters from her bank, her credit card, and every shop where she used to have credit.
Becky is overwhelmed by her debts, but when the panic starts to suffocate her, there's only one way to feel a bit better... to buy herself a little something.
Becky really tries to solve her money problem, but every plan backfires. Among the craziests and most delusional ideas - like having her VISA bill paid by someone else by mistake, win the lottery, and marry the 15th richest man of Great Britain - she tries to follow his dad advice: Cut Back or Make More Money.
Cut Back doesn't agree with her. She actually spends more money trying to eat at home - for which she had to buy all the cooking paraphernalia - and going to the museum - where she pays a whole season ticket and ends up buying her Christmas presents in March - than what she is able to save. And besides, she is in physical pain. She needs to go to a shop. The smell, the thrill of something new, the pleasure of buying something, is too much for her.
So it's Make More Money. But how can you get more money if you work in a little paper called Sucessful Savings, and your boss doesn't give you a raise?
Maybe you should get another job. That's what Becky tries to do, but she blows her opportunity up when she pretends she is fluent in finnish and is caught in the interview. Or you could get a part time job... and Becky is in heaven when she is hired part time as a clothes store assistant. How difficult can it be to help other people buy? But hiding the last pair of zebra printed jeans is not part of the job, and it actually can get you sacked. Even trying to make upholstered frames for sale doesn't work out, and it's Suze, Becky's longtime friend, who discovers a knack for making amazing looking frames.
Her life reaches its nadir when, after blowing her date with the millionare, Becky tries to buy half a store only to have all her credit cards rejected at the cashier. In front of a lot of people.
Deeply embarrased, Becky has only one place to go and lick her wounds. Her parents home.
Comforted by mom and dad - who at first think she's having a baby, and then that her bank manager is stalking her - Becky has an opportunity to relax. Only that she discovers that, because of a passing "advice" she gave her neighbors, they were cheated out of L 20.000.
Feeling incredible guilty over it, she investigates and writes a story that is accepted in a famous newspaper. Suddenly, Becky is famous, and she's even invited to a morning talk show. ¡She's going to be in national television!
Everything is like a dream, until she finds out she's going to do a "lively debate" with the PR representatives of the cheaters. Which means, she's going to debate with gorgeus and extremely intelligent Luke Brandon. Oh. My. God. Maybe that's a good moment to run away and hide under the bed.
Luke Brandon is the six foot tall, dark haired and dark eyed, extremely handsome CEO of Brandon Communications, a PR business that usually represents finantial institutions. He has run into Becky one time to many, and unlike other people who think she's an airhead, he admires her imagination. And her looks. And he doesn't think she's dumb at all.
The problem is that they had some sort of impasse, when Becky helped him shop luggage and found out later that it was for his girlfriend (and he had been sort of flirting with her). They parted in bad terms and hadn't spoken since. And now they're going to be together - but taking opposing stands - in television!
Luckily, Becky has the "moral justice" on her side, and she does a good job defending her neighbors interests. Actually, she's so clear and easy to understand that she's offered a permanent possition as a financial advisor in the program.
With all the extra money, her problems are solved. And there's Luke, and a romantic night at the Ritz...
I really like Becky. She has a crazy imagination, and a good heart, and a lot of her antics had me LOL. Sometimes I cringed too, mortified by the situations she found herself in.
I didn't like the movie at all. The protagonist was a shopaholic schizo whose only common ground with Becky were her name and an absolute lack of self control the moment she stepped into a store. The things that happen to her are different from the ones in the book, or end different. Mom and Dad weren't anything like Becky's real parents (I found it hilarious that Becky's mom was a catalogue shopaholic). And the movie Luke Brandon was a watered down version of the original. Come on, the real Luke is a shark who made a succesful business from scratch. Even Becky is a little intimidated by him before she gets to know him better.
I think the part of the movie I disliked the most was the ending, when she pays her debt in pennies. I found it a mean-spirited thing to do, completely out of character of the book-Becky. And in the book, she ends up in good terms with her bank manager.
Movie trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5muyAz5DYM
¿Is this anything like the book?
I have to admit at first I didn't get Becky's passion for shopping. But after living in NY, where there are amazingly beautiful stuff in every store you go, I undertand how difficult is to be restrained.
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