If this were a film about alcohol or any other addiction, people would find it distasteful. In some respects, an addiction to shopping is like a mental illness: it can't be classed as a laughing matter. It consumes your life.
Isla Fisher plays a magazine journalist with an out-of-control spending habit. She is quite an extreme case and the film isn't terribly accurate. The majority of people currently in debt are just trying to cover their day-to-day living costs. They are not spending silly amounts of money on Gucci boots.
I suspect the character's credit rating would be so bad that all those cards would have been cancelled a long time ago. Instead, she is able to borrow more and more money. The behaviour of the debt collector character, who chases her around New York and turns up at her office, would be classed as harassment under UK law.
If she turned up at my office, I would sit down with her and list every one of her daily financial commitments to see what she had left to pay off her debts. Then we would work out how long they would take to clear. This process generally hits home how severe the situation is: we call it the lightbulb moment. She could also cut up her credit cards and send them to her lenders. It demonstrates that you've hit turning point, and creditors will hopefully respect that.
I suppose you could say the film serves as a warning, but it does rather glamourise a credit-supported lifestyle. Fisher's character strives for all these products, but we don't see her striving to work for them. She basically falls into her various jobs, which again feels pretty insensitive in this climate.
