In Her Shoes

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

The movie is so well-cast, sympathetically acted and delicately directed -- and so genuinely touching and funny -- that it leaps right out of the narrow confines of the family bonding formula.

USA Today Mike Clark

This is the most enjoyable film of its type in recent memory.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's wonderfully satisfying: Collette, MacLaine and Diaz are exceptional, and the mix of humor and heartbreak is perfectly calibrated.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Starts out with the materials of an ordinary movie and becomes a rather special one.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

No great claims should be made for In Her Shoes. If the aim here was to show how chick lit can become just plain lit, the effort failed. But there is something to be said for froth when it's expertly whipped.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Manipulative, but confidently so, and improbably but consistently affecting.

Empire Staff (Not credited)

While on the surface very much a girls' film, this ruefully honest picture has something to say to everyone.

New York Magazine Ken Tucker

When superb craftsmanship, discipline, and risk-taking (toning down Diaz and MacLaine; treating Collette as a desirous leading lady) are applied to accessible, even frivolous material, the results can be deeply pleasurable. In Her Shoes isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s the best Saturday-night movie millions of people are going to go to.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Maintains a breezy charm throughout and contains many extremely funny sequences.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

It's Hanson's astute directing that makes the film's life lessons go down painlessly, turning the smartly entertaining In Her Shoes into a comfy fit for both sexes.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's an earnest, contemporary drama about adults -- OK, women -- that has no use for irony or cynicism, no room for cutting-edge, clever hipness.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A rollicking, mascara-smearing, intergenerational coed crowd-pleaser. Imagine "Sex and the City" negotiating "Terms of Endearment" with "The Golden Girls."

Premiere Ryan Devlin

Simply clicks on every level. From the surprising depth of the story, to the smooth and sometimes brilliant performances, to Hanson’s clear mastery of form.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

The joy of this unassuming, generous film is that it never sells out its characters' desires or ours.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Director Curtis Hanson has made a chick flick with substance as well as style.

Variety Todd McCarthy

While the director's avid fans may be disappointed, upscalish mainstream auds, particularly women, will eat up this well-acted, emotionally focused adaptation of Jennifer Weiner's popular novel.

Village Voice Laura Sinagra

The best moments belong to Shirley MacLaine, who makes the clipped script sing as Ella.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Could it be that the director of "L.A. Confidential," "Wonder Boys," and "8 Mile" has been defeated by characters on a first-name basis with brisket, by women who, in Susannah Grant's screenplay, represent avatars of joyless workaholism and joyless sexaholism?

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

A great big wad of chick-lit gum, In Her Shoes gets by on the skill of its players.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Cameron Diaz redeems her reputation somewhat in In Her Shoes, Curtis Hanson's schmaltzy, but reasonably entertaining dramedy about mismatched sisters.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Entertaining enough, but it's more pat than provocative -- this is what makes it a bona fide audience pleaser while keeping it from drawing real blood.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

Not once does this ruffled sweetness seem like Hanson’s natural terrain. "Wonder Boys" took emotional risks, daring to suggest that with age comes not wisdom but confusion and crummy robes, whereas everything in the new film is designed to slot together with an optimistic click.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

It's absolutely the classiest big-screen version of chick lit we're ever likely to see. But it still has all the lasting flavor of a Chiclet.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The people who made this film -- particularly the ones responsible for the story and the dialogue -- should look no further when trying to understand why In Her Shoes lands with such little impact. The characters seem authentic -- until the chick-flick template distorts them.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Although much of the bloat can be traced to the script, via the Jennifer Weiner novel, let's not absolve director Curtis Hanson from his fat share of the blame.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Overlong, undercooked drama.

Film Threat Michael Ferraro

For you guys out there stuck with a lady-friend looking for that "Beaches" replacement, here it is.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Emotions too often get ladled unconvincingly.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Diaz and Collette are believable as sisters, but their performances rarely surprise -- in a more interesting movie world, they'd have switched roles.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

A bungled mess that spends an hour creating two characters whose lives are about as believable as a successful ambush set by Wile E. Coyote for the Roadrunner.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Artificial in both its dialogue and its construction, the film only works - on those occasions when it works - because of the sincere performance by the underrated Toni Collette.

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

The movie's a bust in myriad ways, especially because almost every scene possesses the oily feel of manipulation and condescension.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

The whole exercise feels hopelessly shallow and artificial. In Her Shoes is basically a double-date romantic comedy, in which not one but two women find themselves and learn to live and love again, etc. etc., and while it's well-acted on most counts, it's also as plodding as it is obvious.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There'd be nothing wrong with this if the film 'fessed up to its kitschy soul. Instead, it pretends to be the high-minded drama it's not.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Ultimately, it's too self-conscious of its role in the marketplace and too hamstrung by its source material to risk being honest at the expense of being liked.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The movie works neither as a comedy nor as a lame melodrama -- its entertainment value is embarrassingly feeble.