The Cobbler
It’s a privilege to walk in another man’s shoes.
23 June 2019
A cobbler (Adam Sandler) discovers that when he repairs shoes with a magic machine then puts them on, he can transform into the owner.
Somewhere buried deep in this unholy mess lies the remains of what sounds like an old Jewish folk tale. The summary above might even lead you to ponder some of the outcomes of the story.
Instead of just telling its story, The Cobbler swerves so wildly off the tracks that you can only sit back and watch the disaster unfold.
I’ll just summarise because I am trying to be less moany.
- Adam Sandler kills a guy and a secret network of cobblers covers it up.
- Apparently he needs to keep eating pickles to keep himself sane after wearing the shoes.
- Based on events in the rest of the film this is not true.
- The ending is a ‘twist’ but the real twist is that there are no surprises whatsoever.
- Turns out that transforming into other people is neither useful or interesting. However The Cobbler tries to sell it as some sort of super power.
- Everything everyone does is quite unpleasant, even the ‘good’ people.
The director Tom McCarthy went on to direct Spotlight which won 6 Oscars. They should take three off him and call it quits.