"Material Girls" stands as the film equivalent of costume jewelry — shiny and bejeweled, but lacking any real substance and, essentially, value. Underneath the golden sparkle of high production costs rests a piece of junk. While this movie aims to show that money can't buy happiness, it actually demonstrates that money can buy a lot of things, but talent is not one of them.
Ava (Haylie Duff) and Tanzie (Hillary Duff) Marchetta are mini-moguls of their late father's famed but struggling makeup line. Like all good socialite heiresses, they live life to the fullest, one party at a time. This all changes the day their empire comes crashing down in the wake of a scandal surrounding the safety of the Marchetta product line. In the words of Ava, "I went from Tiffany's to Target." It's up to the girls to decide whether they should sell out to their makeup rival Fabiella (Anjelica Huston, "The Life Aquatic") or salvage their father's good name and the family business.
This film should play like the extended version of Pink's "Stupid Girls" video. It should be witty and satirical, but, in the end, show the humanity behind the huge Chanel shades. It does nothing of the sort. Hillary and Haylie Duff definitely lack talent for comedy and it's questionable if they have any acting chops at all. They replaced the subtle observation that characterizes strong acting with overacting to compensate for this flaw. The Duffs can't even play rich sisters. They can't even play themselves. They mock duos like the Hiltons and Olsens while not so subtly suggesting that they want into the club. Despite their best efforts, the Duff sisters fall short and portray second-rate versions of Hollywood A-listers instead of being the real deal.
The lovable side of America's favorite celebrities is how real they are. While Paris Hilton resembles the majority of Barbie dolls circa 1990, Barbies never had sex tapes. The public's admiration doesn't stem from their perfection, but rather from the fact that even their millions of dollars can't hide their dirty little secrets. No amount of money can immortalize a person regardless of his or her level of fame, and a celebrity still maintains humanity. The Duffs never turn their characters into people, hindering the effectiveness of the film. Their vulnerable insecurities look foolish and their struggles appear trivial. The audience never feels for the girls and, in turn, never cares what happens to them. All the roles are terribly typecast. Hillary Duff's Tanzie is far too similar to "A Cinderella Story's" Sam, while Huston's Fabiella channels "Ever After's" Baroness.
The cliché script does nothing to help the half-baked performances. The idea is gold, yet the execution is tin foil. The writing is déjàvu of "Newlyweds" and "Mean Girls." It's about as original as a cover-band. The writers are too busy pandering to the young Hollywood it aims to spoof to do the film justice. The vaporous script lacks any memorable laughs or a moral to support the film. The action of the film is pathetically unrealistic. Trying to follow the wisdom of Coleridge and "suspend your disbelief" is impossible. Throughout the movie, viewers wonder, "Where are their trust funds?" and, "I see the haves and the have-nots, but can Hollywood ever portray an in-between?" The hijinks of "Material Girls" hardly entertain even the youngest viewer and bore the above-10- years-old crowd to tears. Comedies are meant to be funny. People laugh when things are funny. No one laughed.
Instead of dialogue, costumes drive the film. A combination of "it" bags, designer dresses, and rhinestone everything steal the show. While the wardrobe is compromised of many previous season pieces — think the newsboy hat with "Jenny from the block" gold hoops — the styling is quirky and fun. Very reminiscent of the stock images of classic socialites, the wardrobe is fabulous. It manages to mock the current trends and the celebrities who created those monsters while still making the looks appear effortless and like parts of the characters' lives. The transformation of the outfits from the glamorous start, into the middle-class slump, and back into fortune mirrors the change seen in Tanzie and Ava. Even the color palette changes throughout the film. The bright colors at the start develop into deeper jewel tones and eventually even out into neutrals and pastels at the end.
"Material Girls" is a shallow movie that doesn't dare to delve deep enough to warrant an audience's praise. Production costs could have been better spent via the Duff sisters' trust funds, as neither appears to have a bright future in film, or on buying Hillary Duff a bagel. She needs it.
Grade: 2 out of 5
