Imagine this review written in italics, with lots of bolding and underlined words and emoticons and exclamation marks! And at least one "OH. MY. GOD!!" in each paragraph. Can you see me bouncing around in my chair, eyes wide open, gushing at the orgasmic pleasure of having seen just the funniest, happiest, most romantic comedy ever!!!

Even that can't equal the experience of sitting through almost two hours of "Confessions of a Shopaholic," in which Isla Fisher ("Definitely, Maybe," "Wedding Crashers") stars as Rebecca Bloomwood, a young journalist in New York who has never met a sale price tag she didn't like. Having run up a credit card bill of more than $16,000, she has no way to pay her debts and still can't resist the siren call of 30 percent off for a limited time only.  

Her professional goal is to write for a particular fashion magazine where she can't even get a toe in the door. Instead, she talks herself into a job at Successful Saving, a money mag published by the same company. Her editor is hunky (Hugh Dancy, "The Jane Austen Book Club," "Evening"), but she doesn't seem to care, as he's only a stepping stone to her ideal job. This will change when she gets to pick out his clothes.

ESSAYS ON MONEY MANAGEMENT
Much to her surprise, her essays on money management, based on everything she does wrong in her own life, turn out to be, well, right on the money. That, added to her permanent perkiness "” Fisher is a combination of Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson and Debra Messing without the schnozzle "” and she becomes the favorite of the entire magazine chain. She has a rival "” The Snotty Blonde Bitch (Leslie Bibb, "Iron Man," "The Midnight Meat Train") "” for Mr. Hunky's attention, but I'd never do anything to hint who wins the guy.

The supporting cast is full of familiar faces, wasted for the most part. John Goodman, Joan Cusack, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Lithgow, Fred Armisen, Lynn Redgrave and Julie Hagerty are among them.

The movie is adapted from two novels in a popular series that was conceived before the discovery that the only person in America who had any money was Bernie Madoff. I don't think the unfortunate timing of this picture's release will hurt it much, if at all. I sat in the theater in my