IN HER SHOES

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 2 out of 5

Because of: sexual content, language

Rated:

Anyone with sisters will tell you that they can drive you absolutely out of your mind, and also grant you one of the deepest relationships you will ever experience. Most sisters have a love/hate relationship. They'll stand by your side when you need them, and take on any one or any thing on your behalf, but in general, you probably don't get along. She borrows your shoes. She never returns your clothes. She loses your stuff.

Rose Feller (Toni Collette) has a problem with her sister Maggie (Cameron Diaz). The blonde bombshell party girl has gotten drunk once too often, this time at a high school reunion, where her fling from the bathroom has to call for someone to come and pick her up. When Rose drops her off at home, their stepmother turns Maggie out. There's nowhere else to put her except in Rose's apartment. Maggie invites chaos, from the clothes strewn across the room to the shoes that have gone mysteriously missing from the closet, to the money taken from her sister's wallet. Maggie attempts to get Rose to lighten up and live a little, but only succeeds in further messing things up. Rose is in the middle of an office love affair. Maggie is searching for a job. Inevitably, Rose's current boyfriend (and boss) and Maggie cross paths.

Coming home after a long and exhausting business trip to Chicago, Rose finds her sister in bed with her boss. After a horrific fight, the sisters part ways. Maggie goes searching for a new place to live. Old letters from her grandmother lead her to Florida looking for a handout, and answers as to why her grandparents were never a part of her life after her mom died. Estranged Grandma Ella (Shirley Maclain) isn't about to let her newfound relative lounge about by the pool all day. In the meantime, Rose agrees to dinner with her charming and sweet coworker Simon (Mark Feuerstein). She allows her father to continue believing that Maggie is staying with her, all the while growing deeply concerned, because she cannot find her sister anywhere.

This formula in film has been followed before, but In Her Shoes does have some positive messages to impart about relationships and forgiveness. It's all about learning to live life to the fullest and that sex cannot get you ahead, it only slows you down. Maggie uses it to get what she wants but ultimately becomes a much more responsible girl. This is encouraged by in large through her grandmother and the other older people at the retirement home. There are many dysfunctional family relationships that are ultimately repaired. We learn that you must see the world through another's eyes in order to understand her, that Maggie had it rough, but Rose had the tough job of making it easier for her. The girls find out things about their parents that surprise and disappoint them, but that doesn't prevent them from loving them just as much. Issues of self esteem are addressed. Maggie is promiscuous and flirty because of her insecurity revolving around how "dumb" (dyslexic) she is, while Rose has always been self-conscious about her weight.

I wish that I could recommend In Her Shoes, but the message is bogged down by sexual content. Maggie is all about living a fast, cheap, trashy lifestyle. Her clothes (she spends the first half walking around in skimpy underwear and bikinis, and the last half showing off cleavage) and attitude reflect this. Our introduction to her is involved in sexual shenanigans in a high school bathroom. Along with Rose, we briefly see her in the throes of passion with Rose's boss. Rose wakes up beside men on different occasions. Her date reads a graphic passage from a trashy romance novel before the two passionately make out on the couch. There are some innuendos and discussion about sex (Ella notes that her first time was on her wedding night, implying how much society has fallen).

Most of the objectionable content is in the first half, but most audiences will be too repulsed by it to wait for the message. The film also contains some foul language (including two harsh abuses of deity) and quite a lot of drinking. Maggie hangs with a couple of boys, one of which tries to rape her (he gets no further than pushing her down on a car hood). It has a good heart but needed to be censored to reach a more mainstream audience. I recommend Raising Helen instead.