In Her Shoes

My wife Heidi decided to invoke her right to pick any unwatched movie for the first time with In Her Shoes. I had no idea giving her this power would be so painful for me.
As always I am trying to go into each movie with the intention of giving them a fair shot and to be fair I knew that this film had been directed by Curtis Hanson who directed two other films that I liked; L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys. Since both of those films catered to male audience's I was curious to see how he would handle material targeted for a predominately female audience.
Having seen the film I have come to the conclusion that Mr. Hanson believes making a female drama means lots of close-ups on shoes. Sure, it's probably a play on the films title, but it quickly became of the films more obnoxious qualities.
As for the story, it seems that the title is a play on the phrase "walk a mile in your shoes." It pits two sisters who lost their mother at a young age at opposite ends of the life spectrum. One is a lawyer who spends more time worrying about others than taking care of herself. The other is a perpetually jobless, semi illiterate who lives with whoever she can guilt into taking care of her. Oh yeah, and there best friends! Oh yeah, and they never get along.
So there's a big fight and the slacker sister discovers that their estranged grandmother is still alive and decides that she is the perfect person to con into taking care of her for awhile. You know, because the grandmother had only sent birthday cards that her father had hid for years and now it's time for grandma to pay.
As the two sisters are separated their lives seem to improve. The responsible one starts dating and gets engaged while the other one starts working in the retirement community where she starts to learn to respect herself and the meaning of a good days work. Of course the film doesn't want to dwell on how there lives are improving while separated so eventually they both start to miss each other and when they are reunited everything is all okay.
The sisters are played by Toni Collette who I like, Cameron Diaz who I loath and Shirley MacLaine who have no feelings for one way or another. The supporting characters in the retirement community seem to be used primarily for comic relief except for the one dieing man who helps Diaz believe in herself. The fiance provides a mildly like able male character and there is enough here to keep me awake which is mildly surprising since I rarely can stay awake past 9pm anymore. While I don't consider this a compromise movie I can recommend as a get me out of the dog house movie primarily because when Hanson is focusing on shoes he is able to keep the film moving at a brisk pace and doesn't linger in unlikeable moments. And, if your wondering, I also think this film is better than the two other films of Curtis Hanson's I have seen, most notably, it is definitely better than 8 Mile.