In Her Shoes (film)


In Her Shoes is a 2005 American comedy-drama film based on the novel of the same name by Jennifer Weiner. It is directed by Curtis Hanson with an adapted screenplay by Susannah Grant and stars Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine. The film focuses on the relationship between two sisters and their grandmother.

Plot

Maggie and Rose Feller are very different sisters, raised by their father Michael and stepmother Sydelle after their mother Caroline died in a car accident. Rose is the elder; an ostensibly plain and serious lawyer who is protective of Maggie despite her flaws. Maggie is a free spirit who is unable to hold a steady job and turns to alcohol and men for emotional and financial support. Rose grudgingly allows Maggie to move in with her in her Rittenhouse Square apartment in Philadelphia when their stepmother throws her out of the house. Their already difficult relationship turns worse when Rose catches Maggie in bed with Jim, a man Rose has been dating. A heartbroken and furious Rose throws Maggie out.
A few days before, while secretly looking through her father's desk for money, Maggie had discovered a bundle of old greeting cards for her and Rose, containing cash, from their "estranged" grandmother Ella. Homeless and without job prospects, Maggie travels to Florida to find Ella. Ella invites Maggie to stay in her home. Ella admits to her close friend Ethel how Caroline was bipolar, and sent Ella a note several days before her death to look after her girls. However, as time passes, Ella discovers that Maggie has visited to do nothing but sunbathe and take money from her. Maggie asks Ella to finance an acting career, but Ella agrees to match her salary dollar for dollar if she accepts a job with the assisted living section of her grandmother's retirement community. Meanwhile, Rose has decided to quit her job, become a dog-walker, and date Simon Stein, a coworker whom she had previously ignored. They become engaged. Maggie is befriended by one of her patients, a blind retired professor of English literature, who has asked Maggie to read works of poetry to him. She does so, but with great difficulty. After asking if she is dyslexic, the professor encourages Maggie to continue reading to him while offering guidance and emotional support. Maggie becomes friendly with other residents of the retirement community, and discovers that some of the women need a personal clothing shopper, an activity for which Maggie shows enormous talent. Ella offers to run the financial aspects of the business, and in the process she and Maggie become close and resolve their history.
Meanwhile, Rose's reluctance to talk about Maggie is straining her relationships with Simon and her father. While Michael remains oblivious to his daughters' falling out, Simon tries to get Rose to talk about Maggie. When he sees Rose talking to Jim about Maggie, Simon's patience has grown thin and effectively dumps Rose after she continues staying silent about Maggie. Ella contacts Rose and sends a plane ticket, asking her to come for a visit. Rose is excited to hear from her long-lost grandmother, but her pleasure quickly sours when she arrives and discovers that Maggie already lives there. Rose reveals to Ella and Maggie that after Caroline took young Rose and Maggie on a spontaneous trip to New York without Michael's knowledge, Michael and Caroline had a huge argument, with Michael threatening to put her in a mental institution. Caroline killed herself two days later after sending a note to Ella, pleading with her to take care of her daughters. Maggie does not remember this as Rose shielded her from the events to protect her. Simon arrives in Florida, summoned by Maggie, and he and Rose reconcile. Rose opens up to him about Maggie and her desire to protect her, fearing that Simon will come to hate Maggie. Later, Rose's wedding takes place at the Jamaican Jerk Hut in Philadelphia where she and Simon had their first date. Ella and Michael reconcile, and Maggie reads a poem to Rose as a wedding gift, which moves Rose to tears.

Cast

Critical reception

In Her Shoes has received generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 75% of the critics gave the film a positive reviews, based on 164 reviews, with an average rating of 6.85/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Honesty and solid performances make In Her Shoes a solid fit for all audiences". Metacritic reports an average review score of 60%, based on 36 reviews. Rex Reed in The New York Observer calls In Her Shoes "pure joy" and "a movie to cherish", arguing that Shirley MacLaine has "found her finest role since the Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment funny and poignant, she uses abundant humanity and smart psychology to great advantage, lending her knowledge to the other actors generously." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times states that the film "starts out with the materials of an ordinary movie and becomes a rather special one. The emotional payoff at the end is earned, not because we see it coming as the inevitable outcome of the plot, but because it arrives out of the blue and yet, once we think about it, makes perfect sense. It tells us something fundamental and important about a character, it allows her to share that something with those she loves, and it does it in a way we could not possibly anticipate. Like a good poem, it blindsides us with the turn it takes right at the end."
Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle argues, on the other hand, that the film "is almost a true statement, almost an honest rendering of a sibling relationship and almost not a sentimental Hallmark card of a movie. But it compromises with itself and ends up in a limbo of meaninglessness, with writer Susannah Grant and director Curtis Hanson strenuously pretending to have told one kind of story, when actually they've told quite another." Carino Chocano of the Los Angeles Times concurs, calling the film "a curious movie, hovering for upward of two hours between light and dark, truth and fake uplift, menace and mollycoddling."

Box office

The film opened at #3 at the U.S. Box office raking in $10,017,575 USD in its first opening weekend.

Nominations

Shirley MacLaine
Toni Collette
Cameron Diaz