In Her Shoes

Sisters Rose and Maggie Feller (Toni Collette, left, and Cameron Diaz) travel a bumpy road toward true appreciation
for one another, in IN HER SHOES. Photo Credit: ©2005, Twentieth Century Fox.

 
At one point in the film, my wife turns to me and notes why many women have a fascination with shoes. Women aren’t physically judged by their shoe size. It’s the one clothing item they can buy without being conscious of their figure. That wouldn’t have occurred to me, but then the film is based on a novel by Jennifer Weiner with a screenplay written by Susannah Grant.

A svelte, blonde-haired woman is having sex in the bathroom at her ten-year high school reunion. This would be Maggie Feller (Cameron Diaz). By contrast, her sister Rose (Toni Collette) is self-deprecating and lacks confidence.

“There are women who have lace bras, silk thongs… things designed to excite a man. A thong would look ridiculous on me,” posits Rose.

In bed with an attractive man, reaching for her camera, she says, “Because things like this would never happen to me, the lawyer in me wants proof.”

Rose picks up Maggie, drunk, from the reunion and takes her to their parents’ home. As their stepmother is awakened by noise and proceeds toward the door, Maggie hums the “Jaws” theme while she fiddles inebriatedly for the house keys. This is Maggie’s relationship with her stepmother. Ultimately, Maggie winds up back at Rose’s for the night after it’s clear that Sydelle (Candice Azzara) doesn’t want Maggie to stay.

How does Maggie repay Rose’s generosity? She steals money from Jim (Richard Danvers), Maggie’s boyfriend and one of the partners at her law firm, and an expensive pair of shoes belonging to Rose. While looking at job ads, she also happens to destroy the shoes by spilling ice cream on them.

Maggie is demonstrably illiterate, apparent when she tries to read the teleprompter at an MTV audition. Rose takes it upon herself to help Maggie get a job. Maggie doesn’t seem too interested, and yet she’d rather be offended than let her sister do the footwork. Maggie does, however, have an insight that proves its usefulness throughout the film. When she sees the racks upon racks of shoes Rose has amassed apparently for the purpose of having rather than wearing, Maggie intones, “Shoes like these should not be locked in the closet. They should be living a life of scandal and passion.”

They go to a local diner and make funny impressions of their stepmother, and eventually the conversation comes down to what Maggie’s going to do. Eventually Maggie gets inspired enough to apply for several jobs at shoe stores, but finds work washing dogs. At her parents residence, she discovers some letters never delivered to her. These letters appear to be from a grandmother she never knew.

After an out-of-place sequence involving Rose’s car, and Rose going on a business trip to Chicago on Jim’s invite only to find he doesn’t show up, Rose returns home to find that her car’s been impounded. When Jim returns to apologize for his absence and Rose isn’t there, he finds Maggie instead. You can imagine what happens next.

Needless to say, Maggie makes herself exceedingly unwelcome, and so she departs for Miami to visit her grandmother. Her grandmother, Ella (Shirley MacLaine), has been sending letters and cards for years. Some of the cards contained money. Oddly, Maggie never received any of the letters. She doesn’t know, however, who kept them from her. Ella catches on quickly that Maggie is looking for some, er, financial support of sorts. Ella doesn’t play the fool so easily. As much as I normally can’t stand Shirley MacLaine, she was easily bearable in this film—perhaps because she was working against the extreme selfishness of Diaz’s character, Maggie.

In a roundabout way, Rose comes into dog-walking as a form of employment—and good exercise to elevate her self-confidence. So, she takes a leave of absence her job. Eventually, she runs into one of her old co-workers, Simon Stein (Mark Feuerstein)—who subbed for Jim while they were in Chicago. Simon manages to convince her to have dinner. Not to be mistaken for an act of chauvinism, Simon orders for both of them to demonstrate he has a talent for ordering good food. He tells her there have been rumors swimming about at the office regarding her departure. Rose used to think that her job defined her existence, but it’s clear she gets more enjoyment out of dog walking than she ever did working as an attorney.

There’s warmth and good-spirited humor in the community of elderly at the assisted living center where Maggie’s grandmother resides. The residents take to Maggie because she’s young and vibrant, and brings some odd charm into their otherwise routine lives. She still acts like a selfish loaf, but Ella challenges her to find work. She’s willing to match whatever wage Maggie can earn. This is her form of repayment for not having done more to be involved with the family all these years.

Maggie gets a new patient, played by Norman Lloyd. He keeps pestering Maggie to read him some books. Eventually he convinces her to do so, revealing that he was a professor. He discovers Maggie’s reading problem and wants to help. A quick study, he gets the most mileage out of his time with Maggie by implementing Socratic method to motivate her. Eventually she’s convinced, by his charm and patience, to attempt to read a poem. After a read, he prods her to give her analysis of the poem’s meaning. It’s not enough that she read to him, he wants to know that she’s understanding the material.

As Maggie evolves and becomes a regular fixture with the retirement community, she gradually becomes the kind of person who could be a better sister to Rose—the only person with whom she truly connects. Rose has just the same problem, only from the opposite direction.

There’s a real charm to Maggie that’s waiting to emerge, and there’s a real lively woman inside the workaholic Rose. The professor encourages Maggie to read and experience the beauty that poetry has to offer. In parallel, Simon shows one can do their job and still make it a priority to, above all things, live life to the fullest.

When you think of it in those terms, and see how their characters evolve after their separation, Maggie’s frank yet poetic observations about shoes clearly have two meanings—both relevant. They do, in fact, spend some time becoming comfortable in each other’s shoes. They also learn to live life in ways they did not imagine possible or relevant. Fortunately, though there are some predictably hokey setups involving the retirees, the film never strays into something as ridiculous as denture gags. The comedic value of old age is restricted to sharp witticism, and maybe there’s something in that. These people, so near their life’s end, are the living reason Rose and Maggie must learn to squeeze every drop out of life. We all grow old, as will these two sisters. They need not retrace the regretful steps of their father and grandmother.

This movie reminds me not so much of the tone, but of the theme of “Groundhog Day,” a great movie about how our lives could be transformed if we had a chance to grow beyond our perceptions of our own limits. Whether you’re living the same day over and over again or living one day after the next, you must take advantage of every minute to have a true sense of accomplishment beyond simply material gain. For Maggie, she’ll live a fuller life by embracing reading. Rose needs to take the time to appreciate the world around her—culture, food, people—enjoying life for life’s sake.

In Her Shoes • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 • Running Time: 130 minutes • MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material, language and some sexual content. • Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox