My Sister's Keeper (Wednesday, December 30, 2009) (214)

My Sister's Keeper is based on a Jodi Picoult bestselling book. In it, Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric have a daughter who is diagnosed with leukemia when she is very young. They decide to have another daughter, Abigail Breslin, so they can genetically engineer her to be a blood-type match and be a blood and organ donor for her sister. At some point when the sick girl is a teenager, Breslin refuses to donate her kidney and sues her parents for the right to control her own body, even as a minor. We see how the sister's cancer has an effect on the whole family, not least of whom is Breslin who has become a human-tissue supply store.

I never read the book, but it seems that the movie and the book differ rather substantially, especially in the ending. I must say that knowing the end result of the movie, I can't say the changes were unwarranted. From what I understand, the book was a bit more elaborate and the ending was more dramatically neat and tidy (but I really shouldn't comment more considering I've only read about the book, but never read it directly).

The movie is as manipulative as you might expect. Director Nick Cassavetes forces us to feel bad for certain characters, angry toward some and cry for others, leaving very little room for our own individual emotional experience. He is very straightforward in giving the emotional framework for a scene, boiling it down to its base sentiments: happy, sad, scary, etc. He is hemmed in, though, by his lead actress, Diaz, who is so untalented at her craft that she can only give big emotions with little nuance.

I really don't think that Diaz is a good dramatic actor and think she should stick to comedies. She feels overdone in every important scene and comes off mostly as a bitch, rather than a concerned mother. In one scene, when the family decides to take the sick sister to the beach, Diaz falls flat as she fights Patric for control over the situation. Patric, on the other hand is really great (I think he's always great) as a loving father who is somewhat overwhelmed by the situation he's in, but understands the argument his younger daughter is making. Breslin is fine, but she's not given much to work with. Alec Baldwin, as Breslin's lawyer, is funny, but it seems like his character might have been cut too in the adaptation, as he seems somewhat incomplete.

I think I got more out of this movie than I expected I would. I expected it to be totally trite and fake emotional, but it was actually somewhat smart and touching. Cassavetes deals very nicely and respectfully with the sick sister who is clearly suffering, but maintains a lust for life. I could do without the trite slow-motion, weepy song, tear-jerking montage at the end - but I think that's requisite fare for a movie like this. Overall this movie is pretty banal, but not anything terrible.

Stars 2.5 of 4