In Her Shoes

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Comedy

Cameron Diaz, Toni Collete, Shirley Mclaine
Directed by Curtis Hanson
20th Century Fox
2005

It's a power-house[hold] film. After Eminem's coming-of-age “8 Mile” (2000), Nevada-born US director Curtis Hanson comes back, offering us something familiar, sensible and new.

Treating a theme so familiar as familial relationships, 20th Century Fox's “In Her Shoes” (2005) is a fresh look at how relationships can get so sentimental without being soap-opera-like.

Dissecting filial relationships gone haywire, Hanson's “In Her Shoes” carries double meanings both for the differing characters of sisters Maggie and Rose Feller, and those of their grandmother Ella Hirsch (Shirley McLaine) and the sister's father Michael [played by Ken Howard]. The story presents the rifts between the two characters, allows us to share the journey, and rewards us the joy of reunion in a
dragging yet clean sweep.

For sisters Maggie and Rose, despite their irreconcilable differences, one thing holds truth for both of them. Their being sisters cannot account for their anger at each other. They even allow for them to strengthen the bond that they have. When their emotional plates collided and created a risky rift between them, each moved on until their maternal grandmother comes in between.

Shirley McLaine's "deus ex machina"--or the coming-in-between-the-characters-just before-the-movie-finishes--does not really appear contrived since the sisters are sensibly established to have clung fromeach other since their mother's death and the father's concealment of their grandmother [due to the latter's mutual hatred and indifference over the death of their mother]. In the end, friendship and sisterhood are simply inseparable. In the end, blood is thicker than water, or let it be said further that blood is certainly no water.

Clever is the employment of Shirley McLaine's grandmother character to neutralize the rift between the sisters, especially when each of the sisters strikes a chord in the sensibility of the grandmother.

Intricate are the stories and familial setups divulged by the characters themselves, and yet simple and clean-cut are the resolutions. While “In Her Shoes” renders to us a different Cameron Diaz who journeys through her own transformation from a careless job drifter to a romantic e.e. cummings fan-matchmaker, it also presents a more intense Toni Collette, who has her own transformation from a geek-ish Philadelphia attorney to an open-minded soul-searching dog-walker.

Also an actor [he acted as Orlean's husband in Nicolas Cage's weird “Adaptation”], Hanson zooms in on Toni Collete's “fat pig” countenance, revealing to the viewer the desperation in the woman's stature and posture when she realizes her being sister to Maggie seems like not holding much truth.

Testing the waters of modern themes, Hanson varies his treatment of rather stale themes such as family. From rapper Eminem's delving into film “8 Mile” (2002) to versatile Michael Douglas's “Wonder Boys” (2000) or even Rebecca de Mornay's “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle” (1992),” an HBO favorite mainstay thriller, Curtis Hanson displays sheer versatility in the craft.

His films are bent on the plight of the individual that is affected by the actions of other characters. With this new film, mental or psychological adventure and intricacies seem to be Hanson's forte.

This is a new masterpiece, as it tries to weave the importance of filial piety and family relationships as the be-all and end-all of his creations.