GetOut Magazine

Siblings struggle to find the right fit in ‘In Her Shoes’
By CRAIG OUTHIER
Get Out

One of the telltale symptoms of hack filmmaking is the tendency to over-squeeze scenes — for another laugh, another sniffle, another moment of romantic transcendence — until the squeezing yields not credible human feeling, but the cheap, artificially sweetened Boone's Farm stuff that courses through every bad movie.

Thankfully, Curtis Hanson (“L.A. Confidential”) is no hack, and “In Her Shoes” clearly enjoys the benefits of his artfully restrained touch.
Adapted from Jennifer Weiner's chick-lit best-seller, this is a funny, vivacious, true-feeling and slightly bitter tale of heartbreak and sisterly love that manages to wear its many attributes as comfortably as a tailor-made pair of Jimmy Choos.

Toni Collette (“Muriel's Wedding”) and Cameron Diaz (“Charlie's Angels”) are terrific as the Feller sisters, Philly girls who were raised in the same troubled, motherless household but grew up to be two markedly different people.

Older sister Rose (Collette) is the responsible one, a lonely, goal-oriented corporate lawyer who feels fat and unattractive and is so unaccustomed to having a man in her bed that she feels compelled to snap a picture of one (Richard Burgi from “Cellular”) to keep as evidence.

Regularly, Rose finds herself playing parent to kid sister Maggie (Diaz), a pert, long-stemmed stunner who parties, shall we say, irresponsibly.
Dyslexic and directionless, Maggie is a great source of anxiety for Rose, who raves about her sister's untapped “potential” but worries about her slam-it-and-ram-it lifestyle. (“There's nothing cute about a middle-aged tramp,” Rose scolds her.)

Meanwhile, Maggie calls Rose for late-night rides when she gets explosively drunk and brazenly rifles through her mostly unused collection of designer shoes. (Their size 8 1/2 feet being one thing the sisters have in common.)

Creature of impulse that she is, Maggie betrays Rose in the worst possible manner, leading to a calamitous falling-out. Homeless and desperate, Maggie scoots down to Miami Beach to bond with the sisters' long-lost grandmother (Shirley MacLaine) and get her soul straight in a “retirement community for active seniors.”

Meanwhile, Rose gets right herself, with the help of a sweetly unctuous male colleague (Mark Feuerstein from “What Women Want”) who can order sushi like nobody's business.

As the sister's absentee grandmother, MacLaine (“Terms of Endearment") gives her most charming performance in ages, one full of discovery, optimism and renewed maternal connection.

Diaz gets top billing and dominates the ad campaign for “In Her Shoes” — you can't argue with the logic; she makes for a superb billboard — and this is, undeniably, the sharpest, most varied work of her career.

But this is just as certainly Collette's movie, a fact she fearlessly demonstrates during the big sisterly fight scene. So wounded is Rose, so enraged, you can still hear her heart cracking on the way out to the car.

‘In Her Shoes'
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Mark Feuerstein, Shirley MacLaine
Rating: PG-13 (thematic material, profanity and some sexual content)
Running time: 130 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday in Valley theaters
Grade: A-