Review: In Her Shoes

Note: This review was contributed by new Cinematical Feature Writer James Rocchi.

Directed by Curtis Hanson, In Her Shoes is already being tagged – and dismissed – as a ‘chick flick,’ centering around the relationship between sisters Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose (Toni Collette) Feller as they both enter very different phases in their very different lives. Maggie’s party-hearty, unreliable ways have made her a couch-surfing blight on her relations, while Rose’s workaholic legal career is complicating itself in the form of an ill-advised romance with a senior partner. Strained and striving Rose tries to get Maggie out into the world and off her couch, telling Maggie that there are, in fact, life options out there "… where people make money without seducing people.” Maggie shoots back with an acid tongue that darts from between well-shaped lips: “Obviously, or you’d starve.”

A lot of films – in fact, a lot of pop culture – confuse femininity with sainthood; In Her Shoes, adapted from Jennifer Wiener’s novel by Erin Brockovich’s Susannah Grant, doesn’t make that mistaken connection. As we watch Rose and Maggie seethe and scrap, we gradually get a sense of where they’ve come from: Their childhood was defined by an unstable mom and a weary, beleaguered dad (Ken Howard) who couldn’t cope. When Maggie and Rose’s feud moves to a whole new level of combat that takes place between the sheets, the twosome split; Rose winds up finding slacker freedom as a dog walker and in romance with another of her old co-workers, Simon (Mark Feuerstein). Maggie finds a stash of letters in her dad’s house that lead to the grandmother she hasn’t talked to in years, Ella (Shirley MacLaine).

With some very familiar elements – family crisis, buried secrets, Misters Wrong and Right swirling around our well-drawn female leads and the presence of MacLaine – In Her Shoes has the feel of a James L. Brooks film … or, rather, has the feel of a good James L. Brooks film from the past, like Terms of Endearment, not his recent mis-fires like Spanglish and As Good as It Gets. But In Her Shoes also has a very fresh and modern feel to it, especially when Maggie’s vagabond ways lead her to show up unannounced on the doorstep of Ella’s home in her Florida retirement community to ‘visit.’ Or, translated, sponge.

Maggie’s co-residency with Ella leads to some sight gags – the sight of a bikini-clad Diaz sashaying out to the pool to tan while a flock of septuagenarians look on is good for a few yuks – but it also winds up being the perfect training-wheel version of the real world where Maggie can actually do well by doing good, including a job at a nursing home that brings her in contact with a blind, bedridden man she knows only as ‘The Professor’ (Norman Lloyd) who forces her to confront her fear of the written word.

Meanwhile, of course, Rose is walking dogs, losing weight and falling in love with Simon. Collette is an actress, not a star, but In Her Shoes gives her some very star-like things to do: Carry big scenes, co-headline the film, sell us a romance and more – and she’s up to the task. Interestingly, Diaz is a star, not an actress: Her work in films has always seemed more aerobically toned than artistically tuned. And yet, In Her Shoes gives Diaz some acting challenges that she actually pulls off. Maggie is the kind of person who considers an open-call audition for an MTV show a career plan, and Diaz can pull off that kind of insane, idiot optimism; at the same time, her scenes with Lloyd are far more softly-sold than they might have been, and I suspect we have both Grant and Hanson to thank for keeping the film from devolving into Oscar-bait After-School Special territory as Diaz learns to read. It’s a little simple on its face – Rose loses weight while Maggie gains gravity; Maggie learns to think and do as Rose learns to feel and enjoy – but again, Hanson keeps the film’s tone pretty much perfect. 

When Maggie and Rose are reunited in Florida, their re-connection allows us to finally see exactly where the two have come from as they try to come to terms with their mother’s mental illness and their dad’s reaction to it. Diaz explains her one memory of the day her mom packed her lunchbox with a tiara – “No sandwich, but a tiara. …” . There’s a scene late in the film where Maggie and Rose finally share their very different memories of another day, and it doesn’t just explain why Rose and Maggie became who they are; it demonstrates how they both might become something new to each other. MacLaine is a strong presence in the film, but at the same time, she’s garnish; the meat and potatoes of the movie is Collette and Diaz’s relationship, even is MacLaine’s timing and line readings are just as sharp as ever.

In Her Shoes may revolve around big life changes for Maggie and Rose, but the most interesting transformation in it may be Hanson’s: Somehow, Hanson’s gone from a tradesman laboring in low-rent thrillers (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, The River Wild) to fascinating and disparate films like L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile and now In Her Shoes. At a time when too many American directors like Wes Anderson, Tim Burton and the above-mentioned James L. Brooks dilute their filmographies by making the same film over and over and over again, Hanson seems to be trying to – and succeeding in – doing something new with each film. Rose and Maggie both find that there’s always time to find a new path to walk; the interesting thing is that Hanson seems to already know what his characters come to learn.