In Her Shoes (*)

Clocking in at a completely unnecessary 2 hours and 15 minutes, this movie is pure chick flick hell. A tremendous disappointment given its stellar cast and accomplished director. Although Toni Collette is good, and Cameron Diaz acquits herself nicely, this is a film with little to no story or at all. After the film, I told my wife Julie that there was no plot. She said, yes there is. I said what is it? Her reply? "Sisters." Yup. That's about it. Diaz plays an utterly unlikeable character who is supposedly redeemed in the end by her reading of poetry to a dying old man. What? The movie is stopped dead in its tracks once Diaz moves in with Shirley Maclaine, the grandma she never knew she had. There is no conflict, and nothing of interest. The two get along from the start. Meanwhile, Collette is romancing a nerdy Jewish guy who, in the film's most revolting scene, shows how "liberal" and "open-minded" he is by debating the merits of offense and defense with a group of African-Americans. This is not a film whose story was just screaming to be told on the big screen. I don't know if the novel this film is based on is any better, but it certainly couldn't be any worse.