Two sisters, Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose (Toni Collette), could not be more different. Maggie gets any man she wants but is not able to hold a steady job and support herself financially. Rose has no success with men and is climbing up the corporate ladder in a high prestige law firm.  When Rose finally manages to get a man to spend a night with her, her state of romantic bliss comes quickly to an end.  Having been kicked out her father’s house, Maggie is staying at Rose’s apartment while trying to find a job. When Rose boyfriend rings the doorbell one afternoon, Maggie jumps into bed with him only to be caught in flagrant by her sister. Rose is so hurt that she kicks Maggie out and the sisters lose all contact and go their own novel ways. But despite all their differences, the two ladies are bound together deeply by their experience of having lost their mentally ill mother at a very young age. The film traces the psychological difficulty of being cut off from someone who is tightly connected to one’s identity.  The movie is watchable on an airplane (I saw it on my recent trip to Los Angeles) but is not particularly profound. There are a few good jokes, primarily delivered by Jewish ladies in a Florida retirement community. 

The film traces the psychological difficulty of being cut off from someone who is tightly connected one