What really made the Jamaican Jerk Hut famous: Liveblogging the Philly-based movie “In Her Shoes,” nine years later

One of the more popular beer gardens that’s literally popped up this summer is the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s, in the lot beside the Jamaican Jerk Hut at 15th and South streets. When I visited recently, I overheard several people breathlessly discussing how the JJH had played host to several scenes in the Cameron Diaz/Toni Collette movie In Her Shoes, based off of Philly author Jennifer Weiner’s novel.

Last night, for reasons I can't yet understand, I watched this 9-year-old romance/comedy(?)/drama in order to see how else Philadelphia was represented in the film (6.5/10 IMDB rating, 75% Rotten Tomatoes rating). Over a very supportive round of Ballast Point Sculpin IPAs, here is what I discovered.

1 minute, 05 seconds: The opening montage lands on a pair of sleek black stilettos joined by men’s shoes in a bathroom stall. The shoes are on the feet of Cameron Diaz, who is the Hot, Stupid Girl. We cut to Toni Collette, who is The Smart, Dowdy Girl, and she’s walking through her office with a stack of papers when she crashes into The Requisite Hot Man. She does the thing where she slowly looks up at him with Bambi eyes as she collects her papers from the floor.

2:00: Back in the stall, Diaz is pulling down her tube top as her voiceover explains, “My 10-year high school reunion. Everyone wants to make a good impression…” But unfortunately for Diaz, she’s a drunken train wreck. “It’s not like I even have a Rittenhouse Square apartment!” she whines. As we know, that’s the true measure of success. What a peasant this Diaz is. Oh, and she barfs on the guy in the stall with her.

3:52: In Collette’s voiceover, she says, “There are women, thinner women, who have things like lace thongs. A lace thong would look ridiculous on me.” Here is where the movie establishes that Collete is “fat.” We will be reminded of that by everyone in the film every third scene. This is Toni Collette in the film:

3:55: “Things like this never happen to me,” Collette says, and we see she’s in bed with The Hot Man. For posterity, she takes a picture of him sleeping, like a fucking lunatic. Collette’s character is Rose, who is going to have to be cut and airlifted out of her house when she dies, obviously, and Diaz is Maggie.

4:00: Rose gets a call from Ted/Tad/Todd, Maggie’s grimy bathroom jumpoff, saying Rose has to come pick her sister up. Rose arrives in a ponytail, glasses and a puffy coat meant for Big Pun. She spies her sister passed out on a couch with a lit cigarette in her hand. This 10-year reunion is the only indication that Maggie is older than 17 — I’m pretty sure Diaz took “your character doesn’t have her life together” as “your character is in middle school.”

5:02: Because she’s a sloppopotamus, Maggie is booted out of her dad’s house by her Evil Stepmother, who does nothing but bitch in an accent that’s Astoria Trying to Pass as Philadelphia. She talks about her own perfect daughter, “MyMarsha.” Sounds like “Mawr-shaw.”

6:50: Back at Fat Rose’s apartment, Rose tells Maggie to go to school and “figure out what you’re good at.” Maggie purrs, “I know what I’m good at,” in a sexy voice as she strips off her dress. The audience shifts uncomfortably because this is a lot like Maggie is trying to have sex with her sister.

7:34: They reminisce about a dog they had, Honey Bun. Clearly a Philly reference.

8:52: The Hot Man comes out of the shower looking for Tub O’Lard Rose. Her finds Maggie in a shirt and panties. Her checks out her Honey Buns. Rose and Hot Man leave together, when Hot Man realizes he’s missing cash. We cut to Maggie, who has swiped it. She swans around Rose’s apartment, disturbing Rose’s well-cultivated life.

9:12: Rose has nine million pairs of shoes. She’s like a fat Carrie Bradshaw, except she’s a lawyer, so it’s actually conceivable that she could afford them. Rose also left the classified job listings in the freezer for Maggie, because she knows Maggie does wacky/adorable things like eating ice cream for breakfast. Maggie eats ice cream with whole milk dumped right into the pint like a goddamned barbarian.

10:40: RotundRose and her friend with a bad haircut and a Daria voice walk through the Italian Market. Philadelphians recognize it as the Italian Market. From the way it's shot, other viewers think the two are suddenly walking through a Thai shantytown.

11:52: At Rose’s office, the nerdy dude next to her, Simon (played by Mark Feuerstein, whose most recent project is actually called Larry Gaye: Renegade Male Flight Attendant) offers her chocolate. He’s going to find his way to her heart through food, you see. Hot Man tells Rose in the hallway that he wants her to come to Chicago on a business trip with him. Bizz-nass.

13:30: Maggie goes on an audition for a position as a TRL VJ on MTV. The actual VJ in 2005 was Vanessa Lachey (née Minnillo), who was 24 that year and not yet married to a former 98 Degrees heartthrob. He was still with Jessica Simpson at the time. (This research is upsetting.) Maggie is 28-ish. In Hot Teleprompter Reader Girl time, isn’t that ancient? Is it like with supermodels? 

14:00: Maggie gets a callback for a teleprompter reading, and is wearing a shirt that exposes 44 inches of sternum. We find out that Maggie can’t read. Remember, she’s just The Hot Dumb One. Don’t worry, Mags. Just marry a guy from One Direction when he’s born next year.

14:53: Maggie comes home to WhalelikeRose’s apartment, where she’s staying. They go over Maggie’s bleak job history. Once, she was fired from a place called “Canal House” for prying the “C” off of the sign, making it “Anal House.” A solid prank.

15:04: They look at Imelda MarcRose’s shoe collection. “You don’t even wear most of these. Why do you buy them?” asks Maggie while trying to figure out how many pairs she can fit in her purse. “Clothes never look any good, food just makes me fatter,” bellows WhoppingRose as she tears into a turkey leg. “But shoes, shoes always fit.” YEAH, BUT THEY DON’T FIT EVERY BUDGET, FAT ROSE, I yell at my cats. Also, you actually do gain weight in your feet. So I’ve heard.

17:00: Two sleazeballs check out the sisters when they go to a bar. One says, “How would you ladies like to join us for something wet?” Later in a diner, they establish he was alluding to a vagina! 

19:45: FatRose is off to Chicago with her slampiece, she thinks. But when the car door opens, it’s Nerdy Simon, who was sent in Hot Man’s stead. He offers her an almond croissant. Nerdy Simon might be one of those guys who pays webcam porn models to eat messy sandwiches for $150 an hour.

21:39: Maggie is running around Philadelphia, looking for work. There’s a Daily News/Inquirer truck in the background. She goes into a pet store, where a woman shows her how to squeeze a dog’s anal glands. Anal References in This Film: 2.

23:14: Back at MarshaMom and her dad’s house, Maggie runs around stealing cash. People apparently really do keep many loose $1 and $5 bills all over their homes and behind picture frames. When she looks in one drawer, she finds a stack of birthday cards to her and Rose from their grandmother, which they never received. They all have $5 bills in them. Grandma Ca$h.

24:10: Nerdy Simon shows up at CorpulentRose’s hotel room in Chicago, trying to take her to dinner and/or convince her to rub Alfredo sauce all over herself for him. He is really sad when she tells him to piss off. “Take a hint, Si,” she says. “I’ve got six KFC Famous Bowls in here I’m trying to demolish in peace.”

25:30: Maggie is sucking at her job as a Cute Dog Washer. She nearly smothers a dog in bubbles. The place is called “Elegant Paw,” which definitely sounds like it would exist in Rittenhouse but doesn’t. Maggie’s (Rose’s) car is gone after she leaves work. Some smarmy guy comes up and says “They tow on Saturdays, to an impound lot on South Street.” I’m truly thrilled by the location-based accuracy of this film.

27:00: After drinks, Smarmy Guy and His Friend drive Maggie to the actual PPA Impound Lot 1, but they are creeping her out. Smarmy gets mad when she leaves without banging him in a bathroom stall. He chases her and grabs her. She gets to her car and drives away without paying the impound fee. Location-based accuracy diminishing.

29:13: The next day, BigOl’Rose is sexually frustrated and arrives home to find Maggie and the cute bubble dog in her bed. Maggie kidnapped a dog from where she worked, steals cash from relatives and evades impound lot fees. Why is Rose so worried about her? Maggie lives lawlessly and flawlessly.  

30:10: SizeOfABarnRose leaves her apartment, where she apparently parks at a meter every day, to find a boot on it. “You know how many years I’ve had that car, and never one ticket!” she screams at Maggie. Location-based accuracy obliterated.   

30:40: Rose kicks Maggie out of her house. At work, she scolds Hot Man, and mentions “Simon Stein” with the same disgust as when she’s offered fat-free ice cream. Back at Rose’s apartment, Maggie is cleaning in six-inch heels. As you do. A knock at the door reveals Hot Man, here to present Rose with apology flowers. Spoiler alert: they have sex.

32:29: ObeseRose comes home to find the two screwing in her bed. Maggie is wearing her sister’s heels. Rose, irate, makes fun of Maggie’s idiocy, saying, “She can’t even spell ‘J-i-m’ (Hot Man’s name),” and Maggie yells, “Shut up, you fat pig!” I mean, it’s Toni Collette. We were all thinking it. Rose kicks Maggie out. Hot Man takes her to 30th Street Station, and she asks him for $200. “That’s the going rate, isn’t it?” He does not argue. I wonder about the location-based accuracy of this rate.

33:04: Maggie decides to go to the Miami address on the grandma cards she’s been carrying around. We cut to a retirement community, where Shirley MacLaine (Ella) is off to the grocery store with her tiny, Awesome Old Lady friend. AOL rides a scooter, wears a baseball cap and says her son is on the beach somewhere, “looking at bosoms!” She is the wisecracking sidekick. She is old lady Kimmy Gibbler.

38:29: RotundRose is having a meltdown about Hot Man with her Daria friend after their bought cheese together at Di Bruno Bros. Daria Friend says some shit Daria would say, but it doesn’t help. Cheese, in fact, does.

39:00: Ella talks about her husband dying, and lies and says she has no kids.

39:40: Rose is walking Honey Bun Two, the bubble dog Maggie stole, and three people show up out of the bushes to inquire about her dog walking services. See, Maggie, getting a job is so easy. Just hang around Rittenhouse Square Park, where rich people prey on fat ladies in puffy jackets about how they may wait hand and foot on them. Rose gets a part-time job as a dog walker. Says Mikala’s Roommate #1: “She can work off that hippo weight.”

41:39: Maggie arrives in Miami, where it appears she is robbing a payphone, but really she’s looking at a giant phone book. We did not know the difference because this movie was made 9 years ago. When did phone books stop being attached to payphones? What’s a payphone? She calls Ella, and arrives at her apartment.

43:50: AOL then finds out that Ella did have a daughter, Caroline, who was “exactly like” Maggie, including her whole off-da-walls personality. She died in “a car accident,” which, given Ella’s thousand-yard stare and long pause, is probably not the whole truth.

44:30: FatRose is in Famous 4th Street Deli (I used to live across the street, the rental agent did not mention this celebrity connection in the ad) with her dad, where she will eat the entire cake case. She has quit her job as a lawyer to be a dog walker and find herself. Her dad wants her to go to a shrink. Perhaps rightfully? No judgment.

46:12: Maggie rejects a breakfast (“any kind of eggs you like”) offer from Ella. You really are nuts, girl. Grandmother Breakfasts are exhilarating. Maggie dumps 40 scoops of sugar into her coffee. It becomes clear the dad has been hiding the cards, and tried to “protect” the mentally ill mother from the grandmother and separate the grandmother from the grandchildren. Okay, this is exactly the familial complication in the plotline of Bridget (Blake Lively) in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, which I also just recently watched because I’m embarrassing and have no culture. Except in Sisterhood, Bridget’s secret-card-sending, shamed-by-father grandmother is played by Blythe Danner, who might be more awesome than Shirley MacLaine. I can’t decide.

47:00: Maggie is putting on a show for the old men beside the pool at the retirement community by rubbing oil all over herself. At home, PorkyRose runs the Rocky Steps with 15 dogs. She’s out of breath after six steps, obviously.

49:44: In Philly, Nerdy Simon shows up to harass Rose on the street. He takes her for sushi. He asks her, “You eat everything?” “What do you think?” she replies. “No, really, what do you think? I don’t have a body image anymore, everyone’s established it for me.” Simon tells her he’s an “expert orderer.” She said the last great restaurant she went to was Le Bec-Fin. At the sushi place, Simon rubs his chopsticks together. Some expert. That’s the height of rudeness in Japanese dining. He pressures her into another dinner date. “Maybe next time I can watch you do a burger challenge?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

51:02: In Miami, Maggie is spilling liquids all over Ella’s house and telling Ella she should have tried harder to be grandmotherly. “She sounds like a manipulative little nincompoop!” says AOL about Maggie. It looks like AOL’s hat says WTF, but I think it says WPT, as in World Poker Tour. She’s a treasure.

54:49: Ella explains that Caroline killed herself via intentional car crash and left a note. AOL comforts her, and says Ella did everything she could. “You tell that to Little Miss Hotsy Totsy Pants!” AOL is like the living “sassy hair-flipping girl” emoji.

56:10: Simon and CorpulentRose go to the Jamaican Jerk Hut, finally. “So this is where all my ex boyfriends have come from!” she quips. Good one, Rose. If you can’t be thin, at least you can be funny. Simon says the Sixers are one of the things that “hold him together.” Rose is giving him the “maybe you’re not so bad” eyes. The audience respectfully disagrees.

58:02: At Ella’s place, Maggie is raiding her drawers for money and finds a picture of her with her mom. Ella catches her. “Wrong place. My cash is in the sock drawer.” Did no one have a checking account in 2005?

1 hour, 00 minutes: Maggie wants $3,000 to go to New York, where with that amount she will be able to rent a tent behind the Manhattan version of the Jamaican Jerk Hut, for 4 hours. “Get a job, diva,” says Ella. Said job will be at the Extra Old Old Folks portion of the retirement community, where Maggie meets a blind man, who wants Maggie to read to him. He cannot see she is the Hot One and therefore cannot possess skills.

1:02: Roly-PolyRose calls Simon and asks if the Sixers are basketball or football. SIGH, FAT ROSE. Even I know that. They go to a game and then Pat’s, where Simon screams at some guys about the Celtics and the Bulls. This would not go down well in reality.

1:05: Mikala’s Roommate #2, of BigBonedRose: “Why does she wear so many turtlenecks?”

1:05:25: Rose brings Simon back to her apartment, where he reads a sexy romance novel to her. He says “nipple” in an erotic way. He then eyes Rose’s nipples through her three layers of turtleneck. She turns off the light to hide her 58 fat rolls. Simon turns it back on, she turns it back off, he turns it back on. They could have cut 35 minutes from the movie if they had eliminated this scene.

1:06: The next day at the Rocky Steps, Rose’s sexual exploits have suddenly given her the athleticism to run the flight with five dogs in tow. She is wearing cargo pants.

1:08: AOL tells Ella to do things with Maggie that Maggie would want to do. “Surf the ‘Net!” she says, and I pass out because she’s so adorable. Maggie comes home later to find Ella, AOL and Louis, Ella’s sort-of-boyfriend, drinking cosmopolitans and watching Sex and the City. They’re watching the episode where Charlotte doesn’t want to have anal sex. Anal References in This Film: 3.

1:10: Maggie is talking about virginity loss with her grandmother. God, she’s such a Samantha.

1:12: Later, at work, Maggie is talking to the old blind guy. He wants her to read from Elizabeth Bishop, the Complete Poems. “I’m kind of a slow reader,” she says. “I’m kind of a slow listener,” he says. Aw. She struggles adorably at first, and then reads perfectly in 10 seconds.

1:15: Rose is dressed up for a date with Simon at Jamaican Jerk Hut, where he proposes to her by placing a diamond ring on a gigantic, phallic barbecued shrimp. You know the people at the Jerk Hut were all, “This fucking guy. Why are they even here? The beer garden won’t be open for nine years.”

1:17: The blind guy asks Maggie to analyze the poem she just read, which she does with intelligence and insight. She reads one poem, one time, and fancies herself an expert. This movie should be subtitled, Maggie Becomes an English Major. [Ed. note: The author of this post was an English major.]

1:20: Maggie has made dinner for her grandmother. Maggie was a sort-of hooker, a thief and a PPA evader, and has now learned to read and cook in one day. See, she’s perceived as stupid, but she keeps stumbling into success and money. She’s like Forrest Gump.

1:23:48: It’s FatRose’s bridal shower, and MarshaMom shows an embarrassing Rose slideshow where they all laugh about how ugly and fat and uncouth she has always been. Rose storms off to eat an entire Christmas ham over the sink. She then brandishes a knife at her stepmother.

1:25: “Did you know more suicides happen during happy hour than any other time of day?” Rose says to Simon later, apropos of nothing. #fakestatistics.

1:26: In Miaimi, AOL says Maggie is someone who “puts a postage stamp on her bottom and calls it a swimsuit!” That’s the old lady equivalent of calling someone a ho. Maggie has an actual address book in her purse when Ella snoops through it. Man, this movie really is a tour de force of outdated objects.

1:28: Maggie runs into AOL. “Do you know what I saw today at the mall?” she asks Maggie. “Pants with ‘Juicy’ written across the heiney!” Maggie demands AOL’s credit card, to go shopping for her for some family event. AOL is brave, handing over her plastic to a known thief and Hotsy Totsy. 

1:30: In Philly: “I don’t know what to wear to a Main Line wedding!” FatRose says as she flails around her room with Simon. Rose gets wasted at the wedding, and bumps into HotMan. He apologizes for screwing Maggie. “I felt sorry about myself for two solid months,” he says. Rose snaps back, “I’ve felt sorry about myself for my whole life.” Maybe because everyone around her has been pointing to pictures of people from episodes of My 600-lb Life and then pointing at her with critical looks, as if to imply something.

1:37: Maggie is now a Personal Old Lady Clothing Shopper. “But I’m bad with numbers, adding and stuff.” Maggie, just Google the words “adding and stuff” and in 35 seconds you’ll be a CPA, according to the laws of this film.

1:38: Rose is confronting her dad about hiding the grandma cards. He is mansplaining grief and mental illness to her while wearing silk pajamas.

1:41: The old ladies are clamoring for appointments for Maggie’s shopping service. One lady can’t do 5 p.m. “It’s right in the middle of dinner!” I sort of can’t wait to be old.  

1:42: Rose arrives in Miami. Old men gawk at her as she walks by. “Man, this place just keeps getting better and better!” one says. He must be a chubby chaser. Shirley greets Rose, who has done the whole “take off your glasses and you’re a hot babe” thing, à la the cinematic gold standard, She’s All That.

1:45: Rose, Maggie and Ella look at old family photos. The girls tell a sad story about their mom. There is a Sonny and Cher joke that breaks the enormous tension. That’s the kind of movie this is.

1:53: At the hospital, Maggie finds out the old blind guy has died. “Bummer,” she literally says.

1:54: There is a fancy old folks dance at the retirement place, where old perv Louis kisses Ella in front of everyone. Maggie is wearing an insane Dirrty-era Christina Aguilera dress that shows underboob. Thankfully, none of the old men can get erections.

1:55: Simon shows up because Ella called him. The bluehairs are scandalized. Rose tells him how awful Maggie can be. “I will want to kill her!” she yells. “But I never do.” Simon makes a face like, “…good to know.”

1:56: Everyone goes to the Jamaican Jerk Hut, where Rose and Simon are getting married. “Are you sure this is the right place?” asks Ella, throwing shade all over Philadelphia. 

1:58: Maggie reads a poem by E.E. Cummings. Rose is crying. Pure maple syrup, probably.

2:00:00: Maggie is chatting up the woman who owned the dog place, where, oh right, Maggie stole a dog. I guess they’re over it.

2:04: A reggae version of “I Got You Babe,” referencing the Sonny and Cher “joke,” is playing us out. The sisters share a meaningful look to which I can’t relate because I only have a brother.

2:07: Credits. In order of appearance, “Todd” is listed second. Who the hell is Todd?

Oh right. He banged Maggie in the bathroom stall. All things come full circle.

The end.