Capitalism can be a beautiful thing – as delicate and flexible as a silk Chanel dress or as sturdy and impressive as a pair of Gucci heels. Of course, if you want an even more flowery and questionable analogy, then “Confessions of a Shopaholic” will do you good.

Rebecca Bloomwood (Isla Fisher) has a philosophy: a girl can never have too many clothes.

Or shoes. Or accessories.

For her, Manhattan shopping is a religion, and she’s got the credit card bills to prove just how often she observes the faith. But as long as expenditures don’t outweigh her income as a writer for a gardening magazine, everything will work out.

That is, once she gets the position she’s always wanted at Alette, the city’s top fashion publication. Not only does that plan fall through, but the periodical which provides Rebecca a current paycheck folds, as well.

In a last-ditch effort to get a job, she accidentally applies at financial periodical Successful Saving and, thanks to an unconventional young editor (Hugh Dancy), gets a job as a columnist. She sees the opportunity to work for Saving as a stepping stone to Alette, which is published by the same company, but the problem still remains: Who would take money advice from someone whose debt reaches five digits?

Fisher is more than fashionable as The Girl in the Green Scarf, the pen name Rebecca adopts to write for Successful Saving. The plucky redhead has proved herself a considerable comic talent in films such as “Wedding Crashers” and “Hot Rod” and outdoes herself in a breakthrough performance.

Dancy is less formidable as Saving editor Luke Brandon, a role which only seems to require three things: a straight face, during the movie’s cute moments; a frown, during the drama; and a British accent to cap it all off. But will he fall for this quirky girl who knows nothing about money except how to spend it as fast as possible?

Well, we wouldn’t have much of a plot otherwise, would we?

The talented supporting cast has little chance to flex their comedic muscles – from Joan Cusack and John Goodman as Rebecca’s spendthrift parents to John Lithgow as Luke’s cagey superior to Julie Hagerty as Luke’s scatterbrained assistant, hardly any potential is reached. A seconds-long cameo by a drunken Lynn Redgrave is puzzlingly pointless.

Still, Krysten Ritter shines as Rebecca’s concerned but enabling roommate, Suze, and Kristin Scott Thomas is delightfully snarky as the namesake Eurotrash editor of Alette. Robert Stanton’s bit as a debt collector with all the tactics of a bounty hunter is quite credible, as well.

Transplanted from the original London setting of the first of the Madeleine Wickham – pseudonym Sophie Kinsella – chick-lit “Shopaholic” book series, the movie is ironically set in the perfect spot. Rebecca’s ventures down Fifth Avenue – complete with seductions by chic store window mannequins – speak to the American ideal of impulse spending and just how hard it is to stop, exemplified by the current economic status.

And she is most definitely the average American shopper, making exorbitant purchases, sending the leader of a shopaholics anonymous group on a relapse and worse. Even her solution of freezing her assets – literally encasing her credit card in a block of ice – only slows her down slightly.

If we could not empathize to such an extent, the movie would have no appeal, but depending on your tolerance for the “buy, buy, buy” mentality, it can really speak to you. Of course, this hinges on your ability to stomach love ’em or hate ’em snippets of dialogue such as “You speak Prada?”

The lovable lead of “Confessions of a Shopaholic” consistently finds herself asking “Do I really need it?” before inevitably making a purchase. If you find yourself asking the same question at the ticket counter, my advice is that it is indeed a worthy investment.

But no refunds.

Now playing at the West Theater.