My Sister's Keeper

I almost walked out of the theater. I haven't seen anything good directed by Nick Cassavetes. I didn't think he could do any worse. I find his style to be immature from a film making standpoint. "My Sister's Keeper" was awful. I don't understand why the movie was given the same title as the book. Keeping the names for some characters is not sufficient. The aunt was even changed. What happened to career woman Aunt Suzanne? Obviously these little fowls in the screenplay pales in comparison to the "new ending". The girl with cancer dies. This can be expected. This is not the beautiful, tragic, fabricated irony created in the novel. I was disappointed with every aspect of the movie. Casting was nothing special. I don't understand why Cameron Diaz is being praised for an average performance. After reading the novel, she did not effectively bring the true Sarah character to the screen. The cinematography was nothing, bad soundtrack and awkward editing only contributed to an awful adapted screenplay. I recommend this to no one, even if they have not read the book. Characters were dropped, changed along with the settings. I don't see how that movie came from the novel. I truly did not like this movie at all. I cannot even begin to describe the details that were totally adulterated. They couldn't even get the story right, so why should I expect they to maintain any integrity of the story. I highly recommend the book, but don't waste your money or time on this "movie".

80/100. This was so much more interesting than I was expecting. It tackles several issues and does so with finesse and without the over the top melodrama movies of this type so often have. It's touching, thought provoking and it is certainly not predictable. Nick Cassavettes deserves a lot of credit for creating a film that faces the issues without getting too maudlin and does so with sensitivity and objectiveness. The performances are good from everyone. The casting of Cameron Diaz isn't perhaps the best, but I admire the effort she put into the role. She did very well. The character development is outstanding, you get to know each character and you understand each of their perspectives. Joan Cusack is particularly affecting in an offbeat role for her. Good score, the subtle cinematography is effective.

Where do I begin? For One, the movie has terrible narrative. Each character is introduced via their narration. This does not work. In the starring role, Cameron Diaz plays disease-infected Kate (Sofia Vassilieva)'s mother, Sara. Diaz is terrible, Vassilieva is good. Vassilieva, Jason Patric as father Brian, and Alec Baldwin as attorney Campbell Alexander are all good. That said, that does not help at all. The movie is pathetic. I cried, sure. But this was an insulting set of tears. I cried at the stuff that was not in the original book (such as the ending, which I will not tell.) To think I spent $8.50 on this. It's something that should be found in the 2 for $1 bin at a video store. The star power is the only reason it got anywhere near the theaters. Abagail Breslin takes her 11 going on 45 role too far. She plays Kate's sister Anna. Anna is 11, and yet knows how to sue her parents for the right not to donate a kidney to Kate. This all goes into a sappy, off-center drama that does not follow a single thing about the book. It is sad, but not the good sad. Skip it, please, for your own benefit, just skip it.

"My Sister's Keeper" is a shamelessly, aggressively, middlebrow soap opera. It toys with serious issues that will affect every audience member: life, death, family, giving, selfishness. "Sister's Keeper" pretends to be deep and original and profound. And then, with a rigid predictability, "Sister's Keeper" refuses to be anything but dumb, dumb, dumb, and, with the thud of a maniacal assassin's butcher blows mercilessly repeated to the cerebral cortex, again, dumb. What McDonald's is to cuisine, "Sister's Keeper" is to profundity. The cast is terrific. Cameron Diaz is especially impressive as a nasty mother. If you've only ever seen her as a blonde bimbo before this, you won't know that she had it in her. David Thornton stands out in a small role as a doctor named, with a flatfooted obviousness, "Chance." Alec Baldwin is perfectly cast as a sardonic lawyer. Joan Cusack chews the scenery as if she were in a three-handkerchief weepie from the Golden Age. Jason Patric is convincing as a well meaning fireman dad facing huge life questions. What utterly stinks, here, is the script. This bad script is no accident. It's the result of smug, arrogant, and shallow writers who assume that audiences are not up to the challenge of watching a real wrestling match with real issues. There are moments that manage to create a simulacrum, a phony imitation, of real art that with real courage and real artistry addresses real issues. Sara (Cameron Diaz), in moments, reveals how utterly loveless a mother can actually be. Taylor (Thomas Dekker) betrays the sadness of a young man dying of cancer. Dr. Chance (David Thornton) is convincing as a nice guy who is perfectly willing to toy with human life and human fate. But this is a movie deeply, religiously committed to never rising above a two-digit IQ, a coward's take on the Big Questions, and a shopping mall's imitation of real village inhabited by mannequins-as-humans. Every second of verisimilitude, of fealty to real life as real people really live it, in all its overwhelming beauty and heartbreak, is immediately undercut by a nauseating overlay of saccharine-and-hydrogenated-oil-rich, Twinkie filling. Not a single character is allowed to stray beyond the safety zone of what the filmmakers think their audience can handle – i.e., grade school kumbaya sermonizing from the Pastel Church of Politically Correct Sophistry – before that character is suddenly embraced in a warm, huggy, slow-mo, gauzy lens scene of frolicking on the beach. This is a movie about early death and designer babies grown in test tubes to exploit their bodies in organ harvesting. Could it not have ONE scene that grated, that challenged, that colored outside the lines of a Thomas Kinkade print? There's so much that's phony here I don't know where to start. That a mother and daughter could live peacefully and calmly under the same roof while the mother wanted to cut out the daughter's kidney and the daughter didn't want the mother to? Uh, I don't think so. That, at the climax of the movie, one character breaks down in sobs remembering her own child's death, another character goes into an epileptic seizure while a very cute dog can't stop barking? You know what that dog is saying? "Timmy fell down the well!" Straight from the 1950s Lassie TV series. Can we say, "Laying it on pretty thick"? Oh, come on. That a child can die without once questioning religion, or God, or any belief system at all? Nope, didn't think so. Again, the cast is above reproach. It's the writers. What makes people willing to watch drek like this and conclude that they've had some kind of profound, artistic experience? Movies like this aren't only bad, they are criminal. We humans, as a species, rely on art to educate us, elevate us, guide us. What movies like this communicate is clear: death at an early age from cancer may interfere with your prom night, but thoughtful artistic expression is the deadliest and most taboo force of all.

In "My Sister's Keeper" amazing Thomas Dekker as Taylor gently holds a bedpan as momentarily fragile Sofia Vassilleva's chemo weakened Kate vomits. Taylor says, "That could be me tomorrow." He unwraps a stick of gum, and gives it to Kate. Then he unwraps a second as well, and gives it to her. I was in tears. Director and Writer Nick Cassavetes's scene is sweet, and understated in its humanity. Not all of Cassavetes (director of "The Notebook") and Writer Jeremy Leven's "My Sister's Keeper" is as gentle. Their "My Sister's Keeper", based on the bestselling novel by Jodi Picoult, is a heart wrenching tear jerker that will both stab and touch your heart. It may be one of the best movies of the year. Alec Baldwin is amazing, reminding us what a powerful actor he can be. Sofia Vassilleva is astounding. Thomas Dekker is awesome. Cameron Diaz gives perhaps her best performance, ever. In "My Sister's Keeper" 11 year-old Anna Fitzgerald (spirited Abigail Breslin) is expected to donate her kidney to her leukemia stricken older sister Kate (Vassilleva), who is in renal failure. However, as it turns out Anna was specifically sired to provide body parts for Kate, be it bone marrow, platelets, and now kidney. Weary of the overwhelming responsibility for an 11 year-old, Anna hires famous attorney Campbell Alexander to file for emancipation from her parents. Her mom is Sara (Cameron Diaz), a former attorney who retired to care for Kate. She swears to her husband Brian (quietly strong Jason Patric), "I'm not going to let her (Kate) die!" Sara slaps Anna, when she receives the court summons. Enraged Sara confronts Alexander (Baldwin) in his office, confessing that he is good and almost had her believing that he cared about Anna. In utter solace Alexander admits, "Funny? I was about to say the same thing to you." Baldwin is so powerful. His Alexander illuminates the heartbreaking question: We know that Sara would die for Kate, but does she also love Anna, the daughter they had entirely to save her sister? Abigail Breslin is stellar in both her heartbreak and joy. Cassavetes paints a wonderful scene as fireman Brian watches Anna spend dinner with the other firemen at his station. It is the only time she really gets to be an 11 year-old girl, and not her sister's keeper. Brian says to Sara, "What if she doesn't want to do it?" For Sara that is not an answer. Here Diaz is painfully human as a mother outraged by the unfairness of life. She will not let go, even if costs her the love of one daughter. To that end Cassavetes has the electrifying Joan Cusack as Judge De Salvo, who hears Anna's case. Turns out this is her first case since suffering a nervous breakdown following the death of her 13 year-old daughter in a hit-and-run accident. In her meeting in chambers with Anna, Anna asks De Salvo, "What did it feel like when she died?" Cusack is shockingly and powerfully silent for a minute as a tear runs down her cheek. Anna apologizes for asking. Cusack says, "Death is death." That is counterpoint to Sara. Finally, Sara's sister Kelly (beautiful and strong Heather Wahlquist) implores Sara, "You gotta let go…" There is a surprise in "My Sister's Keeper", though in retrospect it makes a lot of sense. In the dramatic court scene brother Jesse (surprisingly strong Evan Ellingson) screams to Anna, "Tell them the truth!" But it is the quiet moments that moved, and had me in tears. Suffering Kate confesses to Anna, "I'm sorry I let them hurt you… I was supposed to protect you." Vassilleva as Kate is amazing in scene with Diaz, as she tells her Mom, "It's okay." Life goes on. Death is death. And you gotta let go. Nick Cassavetes's "My Sister's Keeper" is beautiful and moving in its simplicity as the story celebrates life, family, and power of love. See "My Sister's Keeper".

In Los Angeles, the eleven year old Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) seeks the successful lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) trying to hire him to earn medical emancipation from her mother Sara (Cameron Diaz) that wants Anna to donate her kidney to her sister. She tells the lawyer the story of her family after the discovery that her older sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has had leukemia; how she was conceived by in vitro fertilization to become a donor; and the medical procedures she has been submitted since she was five years old to donate to her sister. Campbell accepts to work pro bono and the obsessed Sara decides to go to court to force Anna to help her sister. "My Sister's Keeper" has a potential story with a promising beginning. However, the screenplay entwines flashback of situations of Kate's cancer sometimes in a confused way and has a melodramatic conclusion that could be shorter. The greatest problem is the shallow and unrealistic Hollywoodian approach, reducing the strength of the powerful drama, and I believe that this theme would be better explored by an independent director in a more realistic environment. The teenager Sofia Vassilieva has an awesome performance and Cameron Diaz is also great in the role of a mother that becomes obsessed to save her daughter and forgets her family. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Uma Prova de Amor" ("A Proof of Love")

One of the most interesting movie going experiences came when toward the end of this film, the noise of someone blowing their nose filled the theater. A soft giggle then filled the theater. I hate to say that this is one of "those movies," where you know there's a chance that you might end up in tears by the end, but I'm afraid it's true. The struggle between life and death, not only for middle child Kate, but also for the whole family, is heartwarming. Cameron Diaz, takes a serious turn, somehow she seems very comfortable in this role. And Sofia Vassilieva shows both sides of cancer. The heartache and the pain, but also the beauty in how tragedy can bring families together.

Okay, I'm just really irritated after seeing this movie. The book was so amazing and I had such high hopes for the movie because of the amazing cast. They RUINED the book. Nothing about this movie was true to the book. It was disjointed and jumbled and made no sense. They took all the best elements of the book and left them out. The girl from Campbell's past? GONE. The judge is now a woman, Jesse doesn't have issues with getting in trouble. and then the most insulting part? the ending. WTF? how do they take what made the book SO amazing and just change it? That's NOT RIGHT! I wish movies came with money back guarantees because I feel I deserve a refund. I will say the girl who plays Kate did an amazing job. She's the only saving grace in the whole rotten thing.

If you've read My Sister's Keeper, you'll be disappointed. Was the acting good? In some cases great! Kate's character will probably get an academy nomination if not an award. Everyone did a great job as far as performances are concerned. HOWEVER,Hollywood made some big mistakes here that some of us won't forgive them for. For the sake of time, which is money, I understand clipping portions of the story that neither make or break it. Taking away the attorney's (Campbell Alexander) ex-girlfriend was understandable (but sad), but downplaying Jesse's arsonist revenge against mom and dad, which highlights how angry he is at being deserted in sissy's favor, is just plain wrong. There was too much time wasted on extended family involvement and not enough given to some of the other characters, including dad. We get the gist he's a fireman, but his role in the book was much more important than that. And as to the ending? HOW DARE THEY? The most important message in Jodi Picoult's story is how ironic/tragic it was that Sara worked so hard ruining Anna's life to save Kate. She could have loved Anna to nth degree while helping Kate but wastes so much of their lives, hoping for something that appears to be impossible. Then, when she begins to see the light and time for goodbyes have come, Anna "dies" in the auto accident and becomes a kidney donor for Kate after all--allowing her to live after all--and removing Sarah's opportunity to love Anna forever. Was it painful? Yeah! Was it a warning to all human beings who need to remember to love while you can and not take things for granted. Yeah! Did this movie deliver? No. Not for me. Was it a good movie for itself? Sure. Enjoy it. As for me (and Jodi Picoult), I'm just disappointed. Had they left the story intact and kept the "messages", both the obvious and the more subtle intact, I think this could have been an academy award movie. As it is, I think it will just go down as good.

My Sister's Keeper is based on the novel by Jodi Picoult. It runs 109 minutes long (perfect time, thank GOD it's not as long, dragged out and dreadful as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen). Attended a screening of this on Tuesday, and was shocked. I thought it would feature a dysfunctional family blabbing for an hour and 50 minutes for nothing. It was far from that. Story is told in a different way. Flashing between different times without being too confusing. It was a very sad movie, but wasn't depressing, rather educating about life lessons. Cameron Diaz was great in this. I usually hate her, but this is the best I've seen her in so far. Sofia Vassilieva was good as a teenager with cancer and I loved how she comforted her family. In the end, everyone in the theater was crying. Great movie. Go see it. By the way, you should DEFINITELY see this over Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Surprised there were 800 people at the screening of that trash and not many people came out to see this great piece of work. Overall Rating: 8.1 out of 10