Review of Shoes

Shoes (1916)
7/10
poetic and outrageous
4 November 2020
Eva Mayer earns $5 a week in a five and ten cent store. She is struggling to support her parents and three younger sisters. She grows tired of her lazy father and ungrateful family. She dreams of the high life but she can't even afford to replace her worn out shoes. "She sold herself for a pair of shoes."

There is shock value to the opening text. The premise is poetic and outrageous at the same time. I do wonder if the film is trivializing something but one must admit that people are willing to do the wrong things for relatively small reasons.. The final ending is simply more tragic poetry which does leave this feeling a little bit false. There is an appeal to this story despite its simplified construction. This was added to the National Film Registry in 2014.
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