In Her Shoes

Billed as a story about two sisters whose only common trait is their shoe size, In Her Shoes is basically one long Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry between Rose and Maggie Feller. Along the way, they learn valuable life lessons about family, grief, betrayal, love, and self-worth. The novel was written in 2002 by Jennifer Weiner and adapted into a film in 2005 starring Cameron Diaz.


 * All Women Love Shoes: Rose has an impressive collection of designer shoes, from which Maggie loves to borrow without permission.
 * Brainless Beauty: Maggie
 * Compressed Adaptation: Most of Maggie's journey from Philadelphia to Florida from the book disappears, with much of her coming-of-age story getting condensed and/or relocated.
 * Dawson Casting / Playing Gertrude: Cameron Diaz, playing the younger sister, is actually older than Toni Collete.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Rose, Rose's best friend, and Sydelle, the Evil Stepmother.
 * Evil Stepmother: Sydelle.
 * Film of the Book
 * Hollywood Homely: Rose, played by Toni Collette.
 * To be fair, she's never implied to be unattractive, and they do quite a bit to play down her natural looks (the actress gained a little weight, dyed her hair a darker color that washed her out, unimpressive makeup and dress, etc). It's more that in comparison to Maggie that she's less of a head-turner, and that's in part because Maggie has learned to court attention via her looks. She's involved in two different relationships over the course of the film, and both of them are with attractive men, the latter outright admitting he was smitten with her from the start.
 * Missing Mom
 * Woobie: Rose and Maggie. Mother with Bipolar Disorder, parents with a hard marriage, Mother commits suicide which Rose knew since age 8, father cut their grandmother from contacting them, Sydelle goes out of her way to make Rose feel fat and ugly while making Maggie feel like she'll ever succeed in life. Give these two some hugs!