In Her Shoes 2005 Reviewer: Sandra Mancini Directed by: Curtis Hanson Cast: Cameron Diaz, Anson Mount, Toni Collette, Richard Burgi, Mark Feuerstein, Brooke Smith

Curtis Hanson director of LA Confidential and Wonderboys has done a wonderful directorial job on Jennifer Weiner's bestseller. Toni Collette plays the part of Rose Feller to perfection. Cameron Diaz's role as Rose's sister Maggie Feller is her best performance ever as an actor. Shirley MacLaine as the grandmother Ella (Hirsch) imparts reserved and maternal wisdom. Mark Feuerstein plays Simon Stein, Rose's boyfriend who has is charming and sensitive and persistent which Rose needs at this time in her life. He also introduces her to a world of gourmet food, wine and restaurants.

Ken Howard as Michael Feller, Maggie and Rose's father who is constantly supportive. He is guilt ridden about his wife's death and alienated himself and his daughters from the grandmother Ella after his wife, Caroline, died. He tolerates the behavior of Sydelle Feller (Candice Azzara) (his second wife and stepmother to Rose and Maggie). Adele is constantly undermining Rose and Maggie and humiliates Rose at her bridal shower. Norman Lloyd plays the bedridden professor who is patient and understanding and helps Maggie overcome her reading disability.

The pace of the film is good. In addition, the musical score meshes with the emotional moments in the movie. The lies and secrets that cripple the family over the years are eventually unraveled by everyone in this movie.

The movie begins with a drunken Maggie who is a free spirit and party girl. She has low self esteem because of her illiteracy. She has no self respect and depends on her good looks to get what she wants in life. She lives for the moment. As far as a home and career are concerned, Maggie has absolutely no stability. She yearns for approval which the professor provides later in the movie.

Rose, the eldest, is a plain and serious lawyer who works for a top Philadelphia law firm. She is loaded with low self esteem and a work alcoholic who has an affair with her boss. To compensate for her loneliness and a huge void in her life she buys expensive shoes which Maggie constantly steals and ruins. You get several glimpses of the shoes in Rose's closet.

Rose feels the need to protect Maggie throughout the years from the ugliness of the mother's suicide as Rose somehow feels responsible. However, Rose is fed up with playing the parent to her wild and rebellious sister. It is clear the sisters have a love/hate relationship. Rose warns Maggie that her looks will not last forever and constantly reminds her that she needs to get a job although she knows that Maggie has dyslexia.

An unexpected chain of events occur including too many fights between the sisters. They part ways which forces Maggie to travel to Florida to find her grandmother after discovering that she and Rose have a grandmother they thought was dead. The grandmother Ella (Shirley MacLaine) lives in a retirement community for active seniors where Maggie moves in and thinks about a new source of income. Rose shows a sense of agonizing loss when she doesn't know what happened to Maggie.

With Maggie gone, Rose starts to grow socially in her own way and gets a boyfriend (Simon Stein) who eventually proposes but does not understand her secretiveness until later. Rose's past is a threat to their relationship.

Maggie becomes respectable, mature, responsible and reliable in her own way with Ella’s help. With the help of their grandmother Ella, Maggie and Rose come to terms with the early death of their mentally unstable mother although they have poignant and special memories of her. Ella had carried a lot of guilt for pushing her daughter to always be on her medication and never being there for the girls. The Professor paves a path to Maggie’s self esteem and self confidence by encouragement and does not ridicule her difficulties with reading. He has a incredible influence on Maggie who is fearful of confronting her difficulty.

Both sisters throughout the movie realize they have a special and enduring bond – both do not make sense without the other. The girls reconcile, as well as their dad reconciling with Ella, and Simon with Rose. At the end all of the lost souls in this movie meld together.

There is a sense of happiness after viewing the film and I have seen this film many times. I never tire of the movie.