Shoe shines, Stones cold

Double review by Vives Anunciacion
(unpublished)

Two stories about relationships and broken heels and the unusual ways people deal with challenges called the family.

In Her Shoes
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Written by Susannah Grant
Based on the novel by Jennifer Weiner
Starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Colette, Shirley MacLaine
PG13/ 130 minutes
20th Century Fox/ Scott Free Pictures

It’s Imelda’s favorite movie, she’s seen it 3500 times! Okay, maybe not. At nearly two and a half hours, In Her Shoes manages to be an engaging resolution story between two characteristically differing sisters who simply can’t live without each other.

Rose Feller (Toni Colette) and Maggie Feller (Cameron Diaz) are sisters on the opposite sides of the spectrum. The first is a workaholic lawyer secretly having an affair with here boss, while the latter is the typical blonde party girl who can barely read her letters. The only thing common between the two is their shoe size, but it’s Rose who collects shoes as an emotional blanket. Maggie just borrows the elder Feller’s shoes (without permission) most of the time.

In fact Maggie ruins many things in Rose’s life, forcing Rose to send Maggie away to fend for herself. Maggie transfers to Florida, where she finds their maternal grandmother Ella (Shirley MacLaine) in a retirement community. Rose quits her job and starts over, finding romance where she least expected to see it. Through Ella, Maggie discovers her real strengths and independence, even learning how to read. But the sisters realize that their new lives aren’t complete if they still don’t have each other. Eventually Rose and Maggie patch up.

The Family Stone
Written and Directed by Thomas Bezucha
Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Dermot Mulroney, Claire Danes
PG 13/ 102 minutes
20th Century Fox

An open-minded New England family receives a visit from the eldest son’s uptight fiancée – it’s Sex and the City and Meet the Parents combined. Tempered performances save this lukewarm comedy from freezing over. The Family Stone is an amusing family comedy but becomes forgettable immediately afterwards.

Everett Stone (Dermot Mulroney) is taking his fiancée Meredith (Sex and the City’s Sarah Jessica Parker) over to New England to meet his family for the Christmas holidays. What the uptight, reserved Meredith didn’t expect was to meet a very progressive family that’s not quite ready to let go of eldest son Everett. Everett’s mother Sybil (played by Diane Keaton) thinks Meredith doesn’t deserve the Stone family’s prized diamond ring heirloom.

Everett’s bohemian brother Ben (Luke Wilson) thinks otherwise, believing Everett isn’t really in love with Meredith (for whatever reason, it’s vague. But I digress.) It seems Ben has something for the sophisticated Meredith.

An emotional quadrangle occurs when Everett meets Meredith’s sister Julie, whom Meredith has asked to come over for support. Meredith ends up with Ben, Everett marries Julie, and the rest is happily ever after, in general.

Family Secrets
At certain points in the narrative, both films deal with family secrets which eventually get resolved.

In Her Shoes deals with the loss of the sister’s mother, who suffered from a mental illness that led to her own suicide. It is through Ella’s revelation about this tragedy that brings the sisters closer.

In The Family Stone, Sybil tries to keep her terminal illness from her children. It’s through the family’s acceptance of the fact that emphasizes the great bond they have together.

Hot and Cold
The great thing about Shoes is a sincerity to flesh out characters that makes the audience accept the change in personalities in the end. Both Colette and Diaz benefit from fully-realized characterizations, and though the film starts out clichéd and typical, it eventually transforms into an honest portrayal of intertwined lives absolutely co-dependent with each other.

Keaton is excellent in Stone, but there’s really nothing new with a mixed-up love story. Half of the time it’s slightly funny, the other half was seen before in other movies.

Direction-wise, both films are treated lightly – no scene feels overwrought, forced and rammed into the audiences’ throats. Great performances on either film, but Shoes has the better story. It has the warmth of authentic antiques, good enough to have around even after seeing it, while Stone feels like a McDonald’s Happy Meal teddy bear – mass manufactured and artificial, interesting only until the next toy comes along. For a Christmas tale, it isn’t warm enough.