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GETTING IN STEP
Cameron Diaz as the beautiful but lonely Maggie (above); (below) with Toni Collette as her workaholic sister, Rose; and (bottom) with grandmother Ella (Shirley MacLaine).
in her shoes
CAMERON DIAZ,
TONI COLLETTE AND
SHIRLEY MACLAINE
STAR IN CURTIS
HANSON’S NEW MOVIE,
IN HER SHOES, WHICH
IS ABOUT TWO SISTERS,
THEIR GRANDMOTHER… AND A LOT OF WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE.
NICK RODDICK GOES
WITH THE FLOW.
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Director Curtis Hanson has always been a favourite with Preview. Two of his films - The River Wild and Wonder Boys - have been cover stories, and we also interviewed him for LA Confidential. But defining just what makes a Curtis Hanson movie is another matter, apart from the fact that the performances will always be fantastic (look at what he achieved with Eminem in 8 Mile). But LA Confidential is a period satire-cum-cop thriller; The River Wild is a macha (as in, female protagonist) action movie; Wonder Boys is a film about writers (a genre that hardly exists); and 8 Mile is a film about rapping intertwined with a family drama.
Now comes In Her Shoes, Hanson’s latest film, which is about two sisters who have nothing in common but their shoe size (8 1/2 since you ask, although I suspect allusions to Federico Fellini’s classic are not intended). Maggie (Cameron Diaz) is beautiful but rootless - a party girl whose relationships rarely last much beyond breakfast the next day. Rose (Toni Collette) is a highly successful lawyer with a highly unsuccessful private life - an overweight stay-at-home with a self-image that barely registers.
The film, like most of the director’s movies, defies convention by being neither an odd-couple comedy - although it is frequently very funny - nor a glum study of a dysfunctional family (Maggie and Rose’s mother suffered from bipolar depression and committed suicide when her girls were still quite young).
Hanson insists that the film’s comedy leads into its serious theme, which is provoked by the complete breakdown of the sisters’ relationship and the rediscovery of a grandmother neither of them believed was still alive. This latter encounter is rendered especially enjoyable for the moviegoer by the fact that the grandmother, Ella, is played by Shirley MacLaine, an actress of whom we see far too little these days.
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