A funny thing happened on the way to a movie starring Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz (who adorns the poster alone, if you don't count the snazzy shoes).

	Photographer, Post-Gazette Cameron Diaz gets to know her grandmother Shirley MacLaine, in "In Her Shoes" Click photo for larger image. "In Her Shoes" Rating: PG-13 for thematic material, language and some sexual content. Starring: Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette. Director: Curtis Hanson. Post-Gazette Family Film Guide review of 'In Her Shoes' inhershoesmovie.com Web site

T he senior citizen brigade, led by a restrained Shirley MacLaine, nearly steals "In Her Shoes." They wear none of the footwear stamped with the names Jimmy Choo, Stuart Weitzman, Chanel or Christian LaCroix, but they add heart to the story of sisters who learn to stand on their own feet and to understand what it means to be in the other's shoes.

"In Her Shoes" is by no means a flawless film. It's the equivalent of a pair of shoes that are a little too tight or roomy but too spectacular to leave on the bargain table. You'll take them, even if they don't fit just right and you periodically have to slip them off or pad them in the heel or toe.

Directed by Curtis Hanson, "In Her Shoes" is based on the 2002 Jennifer Weiner novel of the same name, adapted here by Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich," "Ever After"). It stars Diaz and Collette as sisters living in Philadelphia.

Collette is the sensible older sibling, Rose Feller, a Princeton-educated attorney who devotes most of her energy to work but keeps a collection of exquisite designer shoes in her closet. Weight may fluctuate but shoes always fit and are an easy treat for Rose, a woman with self-esteem issues. Diaz, meanwhile, is Maggie Feller, an impulsive woman who trades on her beauty and sexuality and can't hold a job for long and harbors insecurities of her own.

Rose has taken care of Maggie since childhood and that dysfunctional pattern continues in adulthood. When Maggie gets drunk at her high school reunion, it's Rose who resentfully comes to the rescue. But when Maggie oversteps her boundaries as a sister and as a houseguest, the two have a blow up and embark on separate journeys.

Maggie lands in a Florida community for active seniors with the grandmother (MacLaine) she never knew, while Rose ends up with a surprising new life of her own. It's only when all three women carefully, painfully, put together the puzzle pieces from the past that they're able to move on.

Cameron Diaz has an innate talent for choosing the perfect shoes for any occasion, in "In Her Shoes"

I had a hard time getting past the fact that Diaz and Collette, in glasses and dark brown hair, don't look like sisters. Or that Maggie calls Rose a "fat pig" (her sister asks if that's the best she can do) when she looks like a woman of average weight. Neither sister is happy in her skin, but the idea that Collette with an extra 25 pounds is ungainly is ... just wrong.

However, the movie percolates once it lands at a place seldom seen on screen: a retirement community in Florida. The residents kvetch about absent children, share a clear-eyed view of what dating looks like at their age, sample "Sex and the City" and take delight or disdain in newcomer Maggie's arrival.

"In Her Shoes" is not the zany comedy I expected, but a finely acted movie with dark undertones related to the sisters' childhood and fractured family. It takes the usual expectations -- that MacLaine will do another larger-than-life turn or that a sassy 80-year-old on a scooter will never hold her own against a leggy blonde a half-century younger -- and grinds them out with a three-inch heel.