Is the perfect example of how having all the right ingredients doesn’t necessary mean you’ll end up with a good picture. The script is weak, and no matter how hard you try, I don’t think romantic comedies between ghosts and the living work. (Sticking my fingers in my ears means I’m not listening to anyone talking about the schlock-fest that is Ghost).
Parts of the movie were hard to watch, though, but that’s just because I take everything so personally. There was a girl in a coma (like my mum) and a love interest named David (like my dad), and so I cried a little. But in the end, it was a disappointingly mediocre film. I’m hanging my hat on In Her Shoes the rock solid combination of Shirley MacLaine, Toni Collette and Jennifer Weiner will not let me down. (Yes, I’m choosing to ignore the whole Cameron Diaz angle).
Not to burst your bubble, but In Her Shoes is getting some pretty horrid reviews. When Cameron is in a film it’s always like watching a dead girl try to communicate with the living. Ouch.
Scarbie, I don’t know where you’re reading, but the last review I saw:
“I saw Curtis Hanson’s In Her Shoes (20th Century Fox, 10.7) this morning and it got me. It’s “commercial,” yes, but not in the pat sense of that term — this is the best classy chick flick since Terms of Endearment, and they both have award-level Shirley MacLaine performances. Once you get past the first half-hour, which has a rote, almost sitcommy flavor and is all about showing us what an infantile self-destructive screw-up Cameron Diaz’s character is (and why her older sister, played by Toni Collete, is perfectly justified in wanting her out of her life), In Her Shoes starts to touch bottom when Diaz visits her long-lost grandmother (MacLaine) at a Florida old-folks home, and then it takes off and starts getting better and sadder and wiser and more touching. This is not an Armond White movie, but it’s exceptional nonetheless. It’s going to get every woman in the country and a lot of guys, it may wind up as as a Best Picture nominee, and this is MacLaine’s year, I think, to win another one. Collette and Diaz will probably also be nominated in their respective categories (which may be different), and Hanson also as Best Director. This sounds gushy, I realize, but trust me — Shoes works the way a big-studio, high-pedigree, lay-the-groundwork-and-then-make- them-feel-it emotional drama should. Hanson knew exactly what he was doing. “