In Her Shoes

This is how "chick flicks" ought to be made all the time. In Her Shoes (2005) isn't a perfect film, but it's a satisfying film, anchored by the performances of three wonderful actresses, all with their own instantly recognizable charms: Shirley MacLaine as the grandmother, and Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette as her two grown-up granddaughters, both living in Philadelphia, and both unaware that their grandmother, now stationed at a thriving retirement community in South Florida, is even alive.

The sisters are close geographically, but their relationship is strained: Rose is the successful corporate lawyer, married to her job, voluntarily frigidized by her perceived lack of appeal to men, and Maggie is the terminally down-on-her-luck younger sibling, who uses her good looks to get what she wants. Rose, whether she likes to admit it or not, derives a feeling of superiority--an ego-boost--from Maggie's perpetual ineptitude and from always having to bail her out. But Maggie's unreliability soon morphs into real betrayal, severing the sisters' relationship seemingly for good. Maggie finds out about their out-of-touch grandma, and out of desperation retreats to her geriatric sanctuary.

What is surprising to learn about In Her Shoes is that Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential), directed it. Hanson's body of work, if you look through it, is relatively obscure until the 90s when he had success with the ridiculous nanny-gone-nuts melodrama The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992). Hanson had a field day with L.A. Confidential, which provides more proof that a commercial director can produce a masterpiece when he's given the right script and the right actors. In Her Shoes isn't a masterpiece, exactly, but as a representative of its much maligned genres (they are really two distinct entities)--the romantic comedy and the chick flick--it's a good example of how sentimental, feel-good entertainment can be turned into something elegant and character-driven.

The screenplay, by Susannah Grant (who also scripted the immensely entertaining Erin Brockovich) is adapted from Jennifer Weiner's novel. Grant's script is self-indulgent, but in that inevitable, pleasing way that makes the movie appealing, even if some of it is a bit too much (like Cameron's reading disability, which is handled with as much finesse as you could expect from such a Lifetime-movie-esque plot device). The script is also very funny, and the humor elevates the darker moments of the movie. Perhaps it's grasping at too much by trying to be an honest look at two complex women and their relationship, while also trying to be a feel-good chick movie, but it pulls both off with a lot more charm and appeal than most movies accomplish with just one of those balls to juggle. And the jokes are well-chosen and well-placed: They don't saturate the movie. They run pop up at unpredictable moments, and are brought to life with delicious zeal from the appealing cast.

As for the actors, MacLaine has perhaps never been more restrained, and she's so regal, so powerful in that restraint. You want her to be your grandmother, because she's loving but also because she's interesting, tough, sharp, and wise in a quiet, pensive way, like she's always aware of the next five moves in the Chess game. Or maybe the entire game, right from the start. Cameron Diaz, who's a really charming actress when given the right part, thrives in this movie, especially against the dramatic chops of Toni Collette. Both women breathe a stunning array of depth into their characters.

With Ken Howard as the girls' father, Mark Feuerstein, Brooke Smith, Alan Blumenfeld, Francine Beers, Jerry Adler, Candice Azzara, and Norman Lloyd. 130 min. ★★★

Bernie

In Bernie, Jack Black plays a prissy funeral director in Carthage, Texas, named Bernie Tiede (pronounced TEE-duh), whose charming ways win over the town's meanest (and richest) little old lady (Shirley MacLaine). The two form an unlikely bond which becomes increasingly more unbalanced when she makes him the sole inheritor to her vast fortune, and he becomes, in effect, her slave, expected to be at her beck and call. Then one day, Bernie snaps: he shoots her in the back four times, hides her body in the deep freezer (where she remains undetected for nine months), and tells the whole town she's in a nursing home recovering from a stroke.

Director Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Skip Hollandsworth, has crafted an uproarious black comedy, which is part mockumentary, part documentary, and part Southern-fried small-town drama (complete with a courtroom climax). Matthew McConaughey, who always shines best in character roles even though he's usually cast as the lead, plays the cocky, self-aggrandizing, and determined district attorney who's gunning for Tiede. The rest of Carthage, it seems, refuses to believe that Bernie is capable of such a horrendous crime, and after Bernie confesses, the crime itself becomes subject for re-interpretation. After all, she was a vicious old crone, and not even her own relatives had anything to do with her.

Black is stunningly good. He turns his voice into a window into the nature of his character, allowing bits of insight with every effeminate vocal inflection and every exasperated sigh and every repressed bit of emotion. His interpretation of Bernie is of a man who must live behind the prison of niceness. He can't reveal what he really thinks about anyone or anything; he showers people with gifts and flattery, using the crotchety widow's money for all kinds of charitable donations and contributions to the community. But under what motive? We're left to wonder how much he really cares about people, and if perhaps he just desperately wants to be accepted.

The film gets a tremendous amount of production value from its cast of local townspeople, playing themselves: very, at times, stereotypical Southern characters, and yet surprisingly endearing (and always funny, whether intentionally or not), and never afraid to speak their minds. They turn this into a sort of real-life version of one of those Christopher Guest mockumentaries, with the one difference being that this movie isn't intending to make fun of them, even though there are many moments where we laugh at their turns-of-phrases and their blunt ways of speaking. It's more of a laughing with than a laughing at, I suppose. Maybe a little of both.

Shirley MacLaine gets lost in all this. She's a famous face attached to a character that could have been played by anyone. Given MacLaine's acting abilities, you yearn for her to do more than be a cold bitch. She doesn't linger in the mind as anything more than a broadly imagined caricature. She's kept in check, which for her can often elicit a better performance (as in In Her Shoes), but in this film, she turns into almost a blank screen, a still, lifeless object on the wall, propped up to make Jack Black's character, who's already garishly conspicuous, stand out even more. There are moments where we get a little spark out of her, but she's just not given much to do. I suppose we can be grateful to see her on the screen, but wouldn't it have been nice if her part had been fleshed out? Even still, the movie's a howling good time, more so if you can laugh at the horribleness of life, which it encourages us ever so naughtily to do.