Movie review: In Her Shoes

Wow, talk about an Ultra-Chick Flick...and yet I find myself unequivocally within the *thumbs up* party for this movie.

Rose (Toni Collette) and Maggie (Cameron Diaz) Feller are sisters. Rose is a "frumpy" but successful attorney. Maggie may have the looks but is dyslexic, unable to hold a job, and thus has always gotten by on her looks. Believable sibling rivalry is what drives this movie. It begins with Rose meeting a guy (partner in her firm) who finds her attractive, but after a night of l'amour, she has to pick up Maggie who's drunk at her school reunion. Maggie is thus thrown out of home by her step-mother and Rose reluctantly takes her in.

(Spoiler section) Rose's boyfriend/Law partner assigns her to go to Chicago for the weekend for a case, implying that he will also go along for a weekend of nookie, but he pikes - sending instead another member of the firm without informing Rose. Maggie spends the weekend looking for a job, and does find one at a dog-grooming salon, but after her first day finds that Rose's car has been towed. She accepts an offer of a drink and ride from two guys, but when they go to pick up the car, one of them makes untoward advances and she freaks out. When Rose arrives back from Chicago, exhausted after a wasted weekend to find the apartment a mess, her car with a boot on the tyre and a distraght Maggie (who's stolen a dog from the salon) she's unsympathetic and demands Maggie move out. When Rose makes it back to work, she basically tells the guy not to waste her time, and stays back to make up for the wasted weekend. Meanwhile, Maggie is trying to clean up her stuff...but when Rose's bf turns up at the apartment with flowers as an apology, she seduces him...only for Rose to turn up and catch them inflagrante delicto. And so begins the rift that can only be healed when each sister realises her own worth without the other...and yet come to recognise the effect of the other on them.

I can't really explain why I liked this movie so much. Sure, its got its cliches, it can be quite mawkish...and yet it's completely believable. It is completely believable that the sisters have formed these personalities/behaviours due to the way they are and were probably compared to each other. Likewise things from the sisters' pasts are remembered differently and forming different perspectives. Maybe it's cos I have a sister. I dont know.

All I know is that it's a lot better than many other Chick Flicks I've seen. Except maybe Kate and Leopold - but even then, it was Mr Perfect (Hugh Jackman) who made that movie, NOT Meg Ryan.
3.5/5