RUTHERFORD ON FILM
‘In Her Shoes’ Grapples with Family Tragedy with Smiles, Tears and Reconciliation
By Tony RutherfordHuntington News Network Writer
Huntington, WV (HNN) --- Forget the chic flick label, simply gazing at Cameron Diaz or receiving a fetish rush --- although each of those ingredients makes up a portion of “In Her Shoes.” Walking into this film promises and delivers laughs, tears and thoughts…the good, the bad and the repressed.
What unfurls as a clash between an organized cerebral attorney and her ditzy (think Susanne Sommers and “Three’s Company,” not “There’s Something About Mary”) immature and irresponsible younger sibling morphs / evolves ever so delicately into a serious drama about past family “secrets” that provide a ‘smoking gun’ for the status of the family present. The question: What will the future hold?
Rose Feller (Toni Collette) has taken care of Maggie (Cameron Diaz) all of her life. Maggie has the knack for flopping at Rose’s when she’s evicted from someone else’s life. Whether with her step-mom and biological dad or her latest temporary dude, Maggie has the beautiful looks but a risk-taking, substance abusing persona. While Rose has a position at a top law firm, Maggie has a resume of botched retail, receptionist, and pet grooming disasters.
When Rose’s workplace romance fella ventures over unannounced and see an almost undressed Maggie, well, Rose arrives to find them snuggling in her bed. Tossed out of Rose’s life, Maggie finds letters at their parents home with a Miami return address of grandparents she thought were dead. Once her long lost granddaughter arrives, Ella (Shirley Maclaine) temporarily ignores the gal’s bucks sucking agenda and bonds with her through compromise and communication.
As Maggie learns nursing assistance, personal shopping and poetry, Rose quits her job and turns into a dog walker for hire, where she meets a man from the firm who really likes her.
Under director Curtis (“L.A. Confidential,” “The River Wild”) Hanson, “In Her Shoes,” has a two-act nature that’s as different as slip ons and lack ups. Obviously, the first portion saunters with all the banter while the climatic half claws indelicately into your heart like a spike heel stuck in a sidewalk grove.
Cameron ( ”Charlie’s Angels,” “Being John Malkovich,” “Gangs of New York”) reinforces her serious drama roots by her rich portrayal of a woman with only a shoe size in common with her sister. Dropped into a name, rank and how’d they die active seniors’ village, Diaz pulls on her non flirtatious work boots and turns from tortured pariah to confident swan that overcomes a learning disability.
Portraying a supposedly ugly duckling, Toni Collette comes across more workaholic mousy than undesirable. Having ‘worked’ to keep the family together, she now feels that only through over achievement (and overtime) does she earn her counselor’s hourly fee. Her line from which the flick (and novel) takes its title accurately depicts her own demons. Again, Collette’s character, like Diaz’s, undergoes an emotional metamorphosis. Her closeted collection and never worn colorful, designer stilettos symbolically represent the repressed rage and sexuality just waiting for a suitable key. MacLaine serves as a shaky, yet firm, wise ole woman who’s eagerness to learn about her granddaughters must be tempered in cautious steps for fear of reopening the guilt that shattered the family a generation ago.
Once the gloves come off, the film clanks at you with noticeably of a broken heel, whisking in your face coping dilemmas ranging from allowing a loved one to live their life versus staying alive or hiding the truth of mom’s death in order to not traumatize her fragile child. Somewhere in the midst of familial tragedies, screenwriter Susannah (Erin Brockovich”) Grant slips the quandaries of 21st Century coupling, where loving yourself must partially give way to “and someone else.”
Ironically, though, the Jerry Springer, the man who has parades the oddest quirks of the human race on his daily shows of dysfunction, found years ago a pivotal request that stands oddly out like the flip flops at the White House mini-scandal: Taking care of yourself … and each other. Truly, “In Her Shoes” explores the effort, stamina, and sensitivity necessary to find the acceptance and warmth that leads to acceptance, reconciliation and romance of two people who automatically re-brand those dirty laceless sneakers from poverty row stigma to comfortable chic.
VIEWERS OVERHEARD “That was good I almost cried a bunch of different times.”
TONY’S COMMENT: How to find one of these woman who have already fought the self-love battles and now desires another person …without dealing with all her children from previous marriages (or flying to Russia)!