Adam Sandler movies tend to be unspeakable; this at least has the virtue of being differently unspeakable. It’s a folksy Jewish-themed parable about a lonely New York cobbler who discovers a magical shoe-stitching device (must be an Isaac Bashevis Singer sewing machine) that grants him chameleon powers. The shape-shifting premise takes a queasy oedipal turn when, in the guise of his long-absent dad (Dustin Hoffman), he has a romantic dinner with his elderly ma. It’s saccharine stuff until it detours bizarrely into violent intrigue, as Sandler tangles with a local black hood (an altogether racist cipher, improbably played by Wu-Tang Clan rapper Method Man).
The Cobbler is directed and co-written by Tom McCarthy, who made 2003’s much-admired The Station Agent, but his penchant for whimsy here congeals to the consistency of stale lokshen pudding. Much play is made on “sole” and “soul”, and Sandler looks depressed throughout. Fine – let it be him for a change.
