In Her Shoes

As testament to the fact that I do accidentally watch horrible films, I give you Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes (2005). Masquerading as a fun little “chick lit” film, this cinematic bust in fact harbors one of the most incompatible blends of pathos and humor that I’ve ever been subjected to in film.

Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose Feller (Toni Collette) are sisters, and, of course, as a result diametrically opposed. Rose is a committed workaholic, while Maggie, a resident party-girl who gets trashed and sleeps with anything, crashes at her sister’s apartment. After Maggie has sex with Rose’s current boyfriend, though, she is cast out and seeks shelter with their grandmother Ella (Shirley MacLaine) at a retirement home, where she learns such valuable lessons as reading and, um, not sleeping with her sister’s boyfriend.

The mechanization of the plot renders an otherwise incalculable personal affront into an injury that is at best kinda bad. Of course, the film reveals that he was scum and that Rose’s true love was another, and in so doing sidesteps all but the cheesiest ethical repercussions of Maggie’s action. This sort of űber-cheesy attention to detail plagues the entire picture, rendering confessions trite and pained, and helping plot twists nearly equal the unparalleled genius that is ABC's According to Jim. This one is just bad all around, folks.

And let it be known, a film cannot end with a character reading a poem at a sister’s wedding, and then repeating it via voiceover mere minutes later. Horrible.

In Her Shoes: 1.5/10