Above: Mark By Tania Martin
AUSTRALIA’S Toni Collette joins forces with Cameron Diaz in the newly released film “In Her Shoes” a heartrending yet hilarious story about two sisters.
This film is directed by Academy Award winning director Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, L.A Confidential) and is based on Jennifer Weiner’s bestselling novel, In Her Shoes.
Two sisters Rose Feller (Collette) and Maggie (Diaz) are worlds apart with nothing in common other than the same size feet.
Rose is a high powered lawyer struggling through life with a weight problem that leaves her with a virtually nonexistent love life.
She turns to a love of shoe shopping to fill the gaps in her life giving her an impressive collection of unworn shoes.
While, Maggie has turned to a life of drinking, parties and men in attempt to forget her struggle to learn to read.
She has a reading disorder that has left her unable to read, which has made it impossible for Maggie to hold down even a minimum wage job for more than three months.
The sisters are brought together after Maggie gets drunk at a school reunion and her stepmother kicks her out of the house.
Rose is resentful that she is again stuck with her kid sister sleeping on her couch.
She then goes about trying to help Maggie get a job, but is unsuccessful.
After a cliched falling out over a man, the two sisters are torn apart.
It was not until after the two had been apart for a while that they realised how much they relied on one another.
Maggie discovers a drawer full of birthday cards and money from her fraternal grandmother that she and Rose thought was dead, hidden in one of her father’s dresser drawers.
After the fallout with Rose, Maggie decided to seek out her longlost grandmother.
The girls’ grandmother, Ella Hirsch (Shirley MacLaine) had been forced out of their lives after the death of their mother who suffered from depression.
Maggie settles into life at the retirement village where Ella lives, and soon finds her calling as a dress buyer for some of the women at the village.
It is here that Maggie finally finds someone who can help her with her reading difficulties, a retired English professor.
Rose joins Maggie at the retirement village after receiving a letter from Ella not knowing that her sister was going to be there.
It is through their reconnection with their grandmother that Maggie and Rose learn how to make peace with themselves and one another.
Anyone with a sister or a sibling will be able to connect with this hilarious film about sisterhood and family crisis.
In places you will need a tissue handy as the sisters make some realisations about their mother’s death and their own relationship.
A heartwrenching true depiction of sisterhood, In Her Shoes is a film not to be missed.
Rating **** stars.
