In Her Shoes

Bomb Rating: 

This film's relationships start out like ships with so many holes in them that it would take nothing short of a miracle to stop the boat from sinking and killing everyone on board. By the end of the film though, all those holes are completely patched up, the hull looks brand new, and the owner is selling the thing for a huge capital gain and smiling all the way to the bank.

This film's relationships start out like ships with so many holes in them that it would take nothing short of a miracle to stop the boat from sinking and killing everyone on board. By the end of the film though, all those holes are completely patched up, the hull looks brand new, and the owner is selling the thing for a huge capital gain and smiling all the way to the bank. In other words, everything just ends up perfect in the end.

But that's pretty much the way of things in the modern chick flick, of which this is one. Rose (Toni Collette) and Maggie (Cameron Diaz) are sisters who have very little in common, though you can be damn sure that by the end, regardless of their differences, both of them will figure out that they can't live without the other and express that particular revelation in so many ways that you're ready to rip your heart out of your own chest and hurl it at the screen.

There's nothing confusing about the character conflict here. Rose is a lawyer and very successful, but she's had horrible luck with men. Maggie is drop-dead gorgeous and can bed any dude she wants, but she has dyslexia and feels like an idiot all the time. Each wants what the other has and this motivates both their insults and their love.

After a particularly bad fight, Maggie disappears and ends up in Florida with her grandmother (Shirley MacLaine). Now, I'll just stop explaining the plot here and say that it's at this point we wade into enough family history and convoluted familial interaction and tragedy to make the Kennedys blanch.

If you're an only child, you can celebrate that fact by seeing this film.

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