The poster for “In Her Shoes” mentions that Curtis Hanson is the director, but doesn’t tell you he directed "8 Mile.” I suspect that would be demographic suicide. But, if you appreciate good direction, "8 Mile” is the key. Neither film has any right even to be tolerable, much less quite a bit better than average. Both films manage their value purely as the result of a director who is still bizarrely underrated. If you have a great story, upper echelon actors, and over $100 million in the coffers, you’re going to get nominated for Best Director, and it is rarely a question of your doing anything particularly interesting. But, if you can take a story indistinguishable from any other bit of Lifetime Movie Network fodder with mid-road actors, and make something that crawls its way out of the “Chick Flick” trench, you’ve done something worthy of recognition.
Our story follows two sisters, Maggie and Rose Feller, played by Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette respectively. Maggie, is the wild, irresponsible caricature that is constantly wreaking havoc on Rose’s life. It’s thirty-something - or thereabouts - so this has been going on for a while, but in a move that borders on hyperbole Maggie finally breaks the camel’s back. Rose tells her to get out of her life, and we’re off and running. The running involves Maggie moving in with the grandmother neither of them knew existed, and Rose roundaboutly falling into a very serious like she doesn’t know exists until long after the audience is already bored with the guy’s cow eyes. Both sisters, through the course of events, become “things slightly more recognizable as actual people.”
Eventually our sisters reunite at grandma’s house, and issues are more or less resolved. Rose intermittently battles the trauma of growing up as the fat sister, while Maggie is semi-disingenuously revealed as developmentally arrested by her sister’s shadow. Grandma, played to perfection by Shirley MacLaine, offers her own mix of abandonment and abandoning issues into the grand scheme of things, and before you know it the words “Chick Flick” are bearing down on you with menacing resolve.
I’ve already, perhaps unavoidably, described something more worthwhile than the actual plot, and that is attributable only to Curtis Hanson. The script needs help, and he’s the only one toeing the line. MacLaine supports well, and Collette is almost as good as usual, but Diaz is largely tolerable only because caricature is practically her stock in trade. Be that as it may, acting had no hope of saving this anyway. Hanson’s composition of scene and precise focus on the nuance of character buried beneath the plot manage to tease the tiny fractions of reality that exist out onto the screen.
There is a scene at about the mid-point of the film which manages to summarize the entire experience. It involves turning a light on and off, and I won’t even explain it, because it would be impossible for you to imagine it as anything but laughably banal. Hanson delivers the intended meaning and emotion, which was wishful thinking at conception, and moreover a richly-layered scene playing on several facets of the plot.
If you aren’t able to appreciate the direction - and are thus probably to the good side of normal - the movie is probably two stars at best, and should be avoided. But, if you are, it’s a bit like if Mozart played “Pop! Goes the Weasel.” It’s a stupid song with nothing to recommend it as far as serious musical merits, but God it sounded cool when he did it.
IN HER SHOES: In this screen adaptation of Jennifer Weiner's bestselling novel Toni Collette MURIEL'S WEDDING is Rose Feller an overweight overworked ...More at Family Video
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