Movies

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, October 7, 2005

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

Sibling rivalry is at the heart -- and there is a lot of heart -- of the comedy-drama In Her Shoes.

Based on Jennifer Weiner's bestseller, it's about the love-loathe relationship of two sisters of very different personalities and temperaments who share only the same shoe size.

Cameron Diaz plays Maggie Feller, a party girl of low education and slinky miniskirts who has gotten along very well on her looks. Men shower her with attention. She never has to pay for a drink in a bar. She is a swan.

Toni Collette plays Rose, a brainy workaholic Philadelphia lawyer who is so starved for attention that when her boss finally stays overnight, she takes a picture of him as he sleeps just to prove it to her girlfriend. Rose, with her big teeth, freckles, prim hairstyle and dowdy clothes, is the ugly duckling, or at least she sees herself that way.

Rose's only indulgence is a closetful -- top to bottom -- of designer shoes which she almost never wears because she's never invited anyplace stylish. They just make her feel good to own. Maggie covets the shoes and sometimes sneaks a pair out for a night on the town, hence the literal part of the movie's title. Figuratively, however, these opposites who sometimes attract in a yin-yang sisterly sort of way will indeed come to see life from the viewpoint of the other in the film's predictable storyline.

In Her Shoes is often quite funny, sometimes poignant and sometimes even beamingly romantic. Director Curtis Hanson strays far from his previous, grittier film subjects (the violent L.A. Confidential and Eminem's 8 Mile), but captures moments that will spike memories in most viewers.

Too bad he gets carried away with the overwritten script by Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), which depends sometimes on coincidence and plain luck to advance. Hanson allows In Her Shoes to become redundant. The film is not only long -- at two hours and 10 minutes -- it seems long. That this is apparent as In Her Shoes heads toward its inevitable, if bloomingly heartwarming, finale is unfortunate. Cutting a half hour would have made the film snappier and easier on the seat.

After Maggie is kicked out of her father's house by her stepmother, she seeks refuge in Rose's home. Rose reluctantly invites her in, but only for a short stay until Maggie can get back on her feet. Rose sets down rules, the first being for Maggie to find a job that will last more than a couple of days. The impractical Maggie first tries out for a spot as an MTV host, but fails embarrassingly because her poor reading skills can't keep up with the TelePrompTer. Tensions grow between the sisters and things come to a head when Maggie seduces Rose's boss, the guy Rose herself had set her sights on.

In a tailspin, Rose kicks Maggie out. She heads to Florida to find the grandmother she never knew was still alive, while Rose -- very improbably -- quits her career to become a dog walker.

Shirley MacLaine plays the grandmother, Ella Hirsch, a no-nonsense widow who still feels the wounds of the past. She's just making do with her life, helping the less able-bodied members of her retirement community. Courted from a distance by an affable widower, Ella doesn't want any ties. Enter Maggie.

It's no surprise that each sister will change her lifestyle and come to terms with her own problems, nor that Ella will open up to her past, even to its most sensitive points involving her daughter's death.

Maggie in her bikini, is at first the spiciest thing in the retirement community, but she soon learns how to earn respect and admiration. Assisting an elderly professor, she learns self respect and sensitivity, too. Meanwhile, Rose will not exactly turn into a swan, though she will blossom.

Besides pathos, there's lots of humor in all this, especially in the comments by the elders at the retirement community who are sort of a Greek chorus of one-liners for comic relief. But there also are horrors, such as the party given for Rose by her stepmother which seems designed to take pot-shot aim at her.

Diaz parodies the sexy characters that have turned her into a star breezily and with self assurance. She walks a difficult line -- being at times insensitive and thoughtless; at others sweet and in dire need of protection -- so that we see her shortcomings but don't hate her. We must feel both repelled and attracted to her, which also explains Rose's feelings toward her.

You can see the loneliness and heartache in Collette's Rose. Collette, who is actually Australian, convincingly plays the Plain Jane with a sense of intelligence tinged by fate. Yet it's difficult at first to see what exactly it is about her that has attracted one of her fellow lawyers (Mark Feuerstein).

MacLaine hasn't been this committed and direct since her Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment, but the practical side fits Ella. When she finally melts, just a little, it's reason to ring bells for her personal rehabilitation. Add a blazingly joyous moment and In Her Shoes is sure to please.

***

In Her Shoes

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Feuerstein.

Rated: PG-13, contains adult themes, sexual situations, mild profanity.