Beautiful airhead Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and plain, stable Rose (Toni Collette) are the most unlikely of sisters. Maggie's goal in life is to have fun and invade on her sister's life as much as possible while level-headed, responsible Rose, the older sister, feels the need to constantly bail out and help Maggie because the pattern was established when they were young and their mother died.
Their father (Richard Burgi) was emotionally distant from the girls and their jealous step-mother Sydell (Candice Azzara) never really liked Rose and Maggie. There were no other apparent relatives to help so young Rose took on all the duties of mothering little Maggie and buffering her from the reality of the family secrets.
When Rose finds Maggie having sex with Rose's boyfriend, Rose has finally had enough and throws Maggie out. Maggie, with nowhere else to go, finds the long-lost and presumed dead or uninterested maternal grandmother, Ella Hirsch (Shirley McClaine), living in a retirement community in Florida. Through Ella, Maggie learns about the family drama and, in time, grows to be a more responsible person and appreciate all that Rose has done for her.
I really wasn't prepared to enjoy this film beyond just being "another ditzy Diaz comedy" but once the film got going, there was much more depth and complexity than I expected.
Directed by Curtis Hanson and based on a novel by Jennifer Weiner.
Rated PG-13 for thematic material, language and some sexual content.
My personal rating: B-
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