The old saying loosely runs that you can’t judge someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes but in Tom McCarthy’s latest, The Cobbler, Adam Sandler takes that a tad literally thanks to a magical machine in his shoe repair store. A new trailer for the film has arrived online.
What sounds at first like it could be a typically broad high-concept Sandler comedy actually appears to be something sitting between that and McCarthy’s more nuanced, down-to-earth style. Sandler is Max Simkin, a fourth-generation shoe repair expert who discovers a seemingly magical device in the back of his father’s shop that allows him to take on the form of others. Seeing a chance to experience a world that is largely passing him by as he works at a declining business, he’s soon experiencing life as a dashing dude (Dan Stevens) with a beautiful girlfriend, a criminal (Method Man) and, from the looks of this, even his father (Dustin Hoffman).
Festival critics weren’t kind to this one in Toronto, but the comedy drama will get its chance to impress audiences instead when it arrives here, slightly later than originally planned, on May 22. If it’s really not great, brace yourself for a torrent of “this one’s a load of old cobblers” headlines.