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Sympathetic 'Shoes' could have been great
Sisters Rose (Toni Collette) and Maggie Feller (Cameron Diaz)
20th Century Fox
Director: Curtis Hanson
Stars: Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, Shirley MacLaine
MPAA rating: PG-13 for thematic material, language and some sexual content
Resolutely riding the facade instead of looking beneath, it defines its characters only by what they say and do, not by any resonance one can discern.
You can see them populating a moderately entertaining TV series but not a corner of the real world. They're a little too plasticized for that.
Rose Feller (Toni Collette) is the relatively responsible sibling, a Philadelphia lawyer who dreams of romance but sleeps with her transparently slick boss, Jim (Richard Burgi).
We guess she works as hard as she does and as long as she does because work is the most reliable option in her life.
Beautiful younger sister Maggie Feller (Cameron Diaz) lives to party. Men gravitate to her the way they would to ... Cameron Diaz. Though not consciously mean, Maggie is irresponsible, inconsiderate, spoiled and narcissistic.
And undisciplined. She has applied herself so little in life that she cannot read. She's probably a shoo-in for a job as an MTV deejay until her audition exposes her illiteracy.
The sisters became motherless 20-some years ago when their mom committed suicide, and their self-absorbed father, Michael (Ken Howard), married Sydelle (Candice Azzara), a stepmother with elbows to spare.
Only when Maggie discovers a stack of old birthday cards does she realize that a grandmother long believed dead -- their mother's mother -- had been sending greetings and enclosures that never reached the girls.
Enter Shirley MacLaine as Ella Hirsch, the widowed grandmother who lives in a predominantly Jewish Florida retirement community, where scenes have a much more ethnic tint than the early ones in Philly.
Though no deeper in its second act than in the first, "In Her Shoes" becomes significantly more amusing and colorful.
The developments in "In Her Shoes" seldom manage to seem organic, but the primary members of the ensemble compensate with the high-gloss of old Hollywood know-how.
You wouldn't suppose it was directed by Curtis Hanson ("L.A. Confidential," "Wonder Boys"), whose work tends to be edgier. Not that there's anything wrong with engaging the audience's surface sympathies.
