I had been looking forward to taking in this version of Jennifer Weiner's novel, In Her Shoes and set aside an empty Saturday afternoon to watch it.

Set in Philadelphia in the here-and-now, it tells the story of two sisters, Rose and Maggie Feller. Rose (Toni Collette) the elder of the pair, is sensible, down-to-earth, and responsible. She's a tad overweight (seemingly a sentence to eternal loneliness in our modern culture), and having a torrid affair with a fellow lawyer in her firm.

But Maggie (Cameron Diaz) is the wilder one of the pair. She parties, enjoys sex in public restrooms with strangers, isn't adverse to pilfering cash and anything else that comes her way. To be blunt, she's a walking disaster, despite being blonde, slender and pretty in a fragile way. The two sisters are complete opposites, except for one trait -- they have exactly the same size feet.

Once again it's Rose to the rescue as the film opens, when a strange man calls, asking her to pick up Maggie, who has passed out drunk at a class reunion. Unhappily, Rose does so, leaving her sleeping partner in bed, and heading off into the night. But when she takes Rose off to their father's home, Evil Stepmother Sydelle (Candace Azzara) answers the door, with Maggie's things tossed into a trashbag, and stern orders to never come back. And Rose has no other real option but to bring Maggie to her place.

Maggie, as she usually does, makes herself right at home, swiping cash from pockets and drawers, raiding Rose's closet, and making a mess and nuisance of herself. In fact, she gleefully crumples and tosses aside the post-it notes that Rose has put up telling her to stay out of the fridge and the closets. Maggie is so selfish that if she breaks a shoe, she just puts it back and goes on to take more. She's so shiftless and useless that she can't even manage a dog-grooming job at a high end salon, and leaves after a few hours, swiping a cute little pup that she calls Honey Bun.

When Rose gets home, she finds not only the dog, but her sister in bed with her boyfriend -- and promptly tells Maggie to not just leave, but to get out of her life. For good. Maggie retreats to her father's home, to get the rest of her things, but also to do some casual theft of anything she can get her hands on, and finds an unknown cache of letters from the past.

Rose, humiliated and not wanting to go back to her job to face her boyfriend again, retreats herself. She finds out that the would-be Honey Bun was someone's prized pet, and discovers a new life in being a dog-walker, and starts to get in shape and trim up (after all, in Hollywood, there can't be a possibility of true love unless you're thin). A former co-worker, Simon Stein (Mark Feuerstein) comes into her life, and Rose learns that sharing a life with someone else can be good.

And then there's Maggie, who opens up that cache of letters from their unknown grandmother, Ella Hirsch (Shirley MacLaine). In among all of the cards and letters, there's a tidy hoard of cash, and Rose tracks down Ella, seeking to make an easy score. But Grandma is anything but easy, and she knows exactly what Maggie is after.

Will Maggie ever get together? Will Rose find someone who will love her? Can Ella keep her bank account?

Feh. Director Curtis Hanson takes what was a pretty good novel that was on the light side, and turns it into a drab story that's more interested in showing Cameron Diaz in a state of undress then looking at the dynamics of a family on the dysfunctional side. The family secret involves mental illness, and Weiner handles it well in the novel, building the story up to a shattering moment, but here, it comes across in a limp way. The other major problem is that the film doesn't get that interesting until Ella shows up, and by then the film is nearly halfway over -- long past the moment where the audience needs to get engaged in the story. I can certainly applaud the underlaying message of growing up and taking responsibility for yourself, and coping with a family tragedy, but this one lacks any kind of emotional impact and instead left me feeling rather uncaring by the end.

Cameron Diaz, in particular, isn't that appealing or interesting in this film. She is, to put it bluntly, a slag in this, and even by the end isn't that much of a person. She's starting to show her age, and what may have looked pretty ten years ago is starting to look a bit shopworn by now. She speaks with a giggly, little girl voice that's annoying -- I would suppose that she was cast for this film to give the male dates someone to look at, but honestly...

The DVD has a few extras, mostly trailers for forthcoming films from 20th Century Fox, a couple of featurettes, one of which that has the story of the cute dog in the film. Subtitles in English and Spanish, with alternate audio tracks in French and Spanish.

Summing up, this was a film that had plenty of potential to be a knock-out, but instead settled for an episodic treatment of a good novel about relationships. It had the basic bones of a story, a good if not great cast, but when it came to the emotional impact, it went flat, and fizzled away.

Too bad. Stick with the book, it has more story and reach-for-your-hanky moments.

Two stars.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age