The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with the Slate Spoiler Special

podcast on Confessions of a Shopaholic.

My partner today is Willa Paskin.

Hi, Willa.

Hi.

Who is a freelance writer and who saw the movie the same time as me.

She's also just written a piece on Confessions of a Shoppaholic and other films that will

appear in The Daily Beast later this week. So I thought she would be a good match for this movie,

although we've never met before today. So, hi, Willa. Hi. So first of all, let's do a plot summary

for those who haven't read the best-selling books that this is based on and just general kind of reactions to the movie. Walking out, were you glad you saw it?

I was.

I actually, so much of the pre-buzz about this movie has been that it's like just an

abomination given the financial climate and that it's just celebration of shopping.

But I thought that it was, while sort of ridiculous in many ways, a little bit more on point about kind of the troubles that everyone's facing collectively as Americans now than I was expecting it to be.

Well, is that sort of the big question about this movie? Is it horrible timing or is it kind of perfect timing in a way, right?

I mean, it's this little sort of very fluffy morality tale about one individual consumer's debt.

And, you know, it happens to land in

theaters at the moment that the whole banking system is basically falling apart. So you could look at it

as kind of grotesque and obscene, which is I think how the village voice critic read the movie,

you know, that it's just this insult to all these people that are losing homes and jobs. Or you can

read it as an allegory, which doesn't make it any better of a movie. But, you know, at least makes it sort of interesting to talk about.

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