I just did something quite unlikely. I watched a chick flick. By myself. By choice.
The film in question is In Her Shoes, and I'll admit that I watched it as much because I knew it was filmed in Philadelphia as because I'd read a couple reviews of it awhile ago that said that it was baiscally "a chick flick, but not a chick flick."
It was one of those things where I ended up liking it despite a number of reasons I shouldn't. First of all was the on-the-nose symbolism with shoes. Sisters with nothing in common have to walk a mile in each other's shoes, and so do grandparents who argue with their son in laws, and husbands and wives, and blah blah blah. Every time director Curtis Hanson (8 Mile, L.A. Confidential) cut to a close up of a person's feet, I got that much more infuriated. And speaking of cheap symbolism, is it possible not to notice Cameron Diaz' character wearing less and less makeup as her entitled slutty bitch character "matures" and "learns life lessons" and whatnot? Or how about the way Toni Colette's stuck up career woman consistently loses weight in accordance with throwing off her careerist shackles and "learning to love life" and such? (Colette, by the way, looks just fine even when 25 pounds heavier than normal.) Oh, and here's a scene nobody saw coming: when Diaz gets a job at a retirement community and befriends a blind patient by reading to him, who could possibly have foreseen the morning when she comes into his room and finds... *gasp* he's not there! His stuff has been packed up! "Was he moved?" she asks, as if there's going to be some sort of surprise when we find out that he's died.
And yet...
Shirley MacLaine is still adorable. She's a little more wrinkly and less irresistably cute at the age of 72 than she was in, say, The Apartment, back in 1960, but honestly? I'd still hit that. Toni Colette is cute too, in what magazine writers would probably call an "unconventional" way. Both, of course, are great performers. I found myself considering turning the movie off halfway through, but honestly wanted to know what happened to the characters, which I suppose is a testament to Jennifer Weiner's book, which I've never read. Not to spoil anything, but the quarreling sisters kiss and make up, the couple that everybody knows is going to get married gets married, and the grandmother and estranged son in law make up too. Hooray! What a great, mushy, feel-good ending!
I've already mentioned the couple reviews I read that described In Her Shoes as a chick flick, but not really, but how is a movie that ends with a wedding in which every single main and secondary character is present not a chick flick?
In the end, though, I'd rather expect a chick flick and sort of get one with In Her Shoes than expect a comedy and get a chick flick, like, say, Wedding Crashers.
Of course, I forgot to mention what might have been the most fun part: picking out the Philadelphia landmarks! Colette goes to the Italian Market in South Philly, and she also goes to a Sixers game and then talks with her boyfriend about how the Sixers have no three point shooter at Pat's Steaks after the game. (Real Philadelphians, of course, know that most corner pizzerias make a cheesesteak just as good as Pat's, Geno's, or Tony Luke's, and that the Sixers have a three point shooter, they just have no defense.) And Toni Colette actually takes a run up "the Rocky steps," or as non-tourists know it, the Art Museum. I've seen a few film crews at the Art Museum, but I'm pretty sure that this wasn't one of them. Oh well.
No comments:
Post a Comment