Script: Shopgirl Post-Script Post

WARNING: May contain spoilers...

As a post-script post, I also found Ray’s character very interesting. He devolves opposite of Jeremy, and he doesn’t really change, but Mirabelle realizes who he is.

He starts out as her knight in shining armor, everything Jeremy is not. Despite saying he isn’t interested in anything serious, we spend much of the movie trying to decide if he really is a snake in the grass, or just a nice guy with commitment problems. He’s so on the fence, what with having affairs and nursing Mirabelle back to health, that it’s intriguing and worrying at the same time. Maybe I’ve spent too much time with Carrie and Big in Sex in the City, or maybe Steve Martin is just so gosh darn lovable in this, but I’m never quite sure if he’s a jerk or a saint.

By the end of the film, we come to realize there really is nothing to Ray Porter. He is absolutely empty, and so can’t possibly give Mirabelle the support she needs to feel loved. He doesn’t arc, so much as be revealed for what he is. And that lack of an arc is almost as satisfying as Jeremy’s uber-arc.