Comedy drama about two sisters with nothing in common but size 8
and a half feet. Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose (Toni Collette)
Feller are both best friends and polar sites when it comes to
values, goals and personal style. Maggie is a party girl who
barely graduated from high school, recycles jobs as quickly as
yesterday's newspapers and believes her biggest asset is her
attractiveness to the site sex. Her recurring state of
unemployment leaves her virtually homeless as she bounces between
the sofas of her friends and relatives. With no confidence in her
intellectual ability, she prizes makeup over books and has an
innate talent for choosing the perfect accessories and clothes
for any occasion. Rose (Toni Collette) is a Princeton educated
attorney at a top law firm in Philadelphia. Her beautifully
decorated prewar apartment is her haven from the outside world.
With her nose perpetually to the grindstone, she struggles
constantly with her weight and never feels comfortable in the
clothes she wears. Her low self esteem regarding her physical
appearance has left her dating life non-existent. Rose's one joy
in life is shoes (because they always fit), but unfortunately she
has few social rtunities to remove them from her closet.
After a calamitous falling out, the two sisters travel a bumpy
road toward true appreciation for one another - aided along the
way by the discovery of Ella (Shirley MacLaine), the maternal
grandmother they thought was dead. Through their reconnection
with their grandmother, Maggie and Rose learn how to make peace
with themselves and with each other.
From .co.uk
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In Her Shoes just gets better and better as it goes
along. As adapted by Erin Brockovich screenwriter Susannah Grant,
this is one of those rare movies that actually improves on its
source material (Jennifer Weiner's "chick lit" bestseller), with
thoughtful direction by Curtis Hanson, the L.A. Confidential
O-winner who approaches any chosen genre with Hawksian
versatility.
At first it seems like Weiner's novel might yield a standard
melodrama of sibling rivalry, but the polar sition of smart,
plain-looking Philadelphia lawyer Rose (the always-excellent Toni
Collette) and her sexy, illiterate, irresponsible sister Maggie
(Cameron Diaz) is just the starting point. In Her Shoes becomes a
moving, richly developed character study that deals with painful
loss, long-term guilt, negative self-image, and the discovery of
a heretofore unknown grandmother named Ella (played with delicate
nuance by Shirley MacLaine), whose re-entry into the sisters'
lives sets the stage for the well-earned emotions of a satisfying
reconciliation.
As Maggie takes stock of her dismal life while staying with Ella
at a Florida "retirement home for active seniors," Hanson never
condescends to these likable characters, and never goes for the
easy laughs in a setting that could have devolved into
Cocoon-like comedy. The movie's all the more endearing for
treating its male characters (played by Mark Feuerstein, Ken
Howard, and Richard Burgi) with equal depth and sympathy, further
enhancing a classy tearjerker that viewers of both genders can
thoroughly enjoy.-- Jeff Shannon