She likes to shop, and the devil -- wearing Prada or not -- doesn't make her do it.

She is Rebecca, the dim heroine of "Confessions of a Shopaholic," who spends days buying clothing and other accessories she can't afford, fretting nervously when the bills arrive. She just can't help herself, and her compulsions are presented for our relative amusement in the film, a trite and mostly shallow cutesy-pie kind of thing with an alarming lack of weight.

Based on a couple of books that numerous people apparently read, the film presents the charming Isla Fisher as Rebecca, a journalist who seeks to land a job on a major fashion magazine, but through some quirk ends up a financial columnist for a money-managing magazine, instead. Of all the crazy things.

Rebecca, using that offbeat personality and her own knowledge of shopping when she should not, becomes an unlikely hit among her readers, earning the trust of her dashing editor (Hugh Dancy), who parades Rebecca around the social scene and reinvents her as a sort of Eliza Doolittle of the somber financial world.

Meanwhile, Rebecca continues to shop, as her debts mount and her own money world continues to sink. What's a girl to do when living such radically different lives, and how can she keep the party going?

"Confessions of a Shopaholic," largely oblivious to the financial crush currently facing the country, is a prancing, enlarged sitcom with elements of the recent chick-lit craze combined with time-honored bouncy music score and lovable sidebar characters.

The film is mostly a chance for Fisher to turn on the charm and twinkle her nose, winking at the audience as she goes. She does this well, and if it weren't for her overall likability, the film might be even less tolerable. As is, it struggles to stay afloat, as there only so many times we can laugh because Rebecca bought a pair of go-go boots she couldn't afford, or whatever, then suffered through her bad decision with a crooked smile and lovely dimples.

"Confessions of a Shopaholic" provides some temporary relief from the world outside, but with a character so comically clueless, such relief only takes us so far.

C "Confessions of a Shopaholic"

Starring: Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Joan Cusack, John Goodman

Director: P.J. Hogan

Studio: Touchstone Pictures

Rated: PG-13 (for some mild language and thematic elements)

RT: 112 minutes