My Sister's Keeper (2009)
Tears and joy, a powerful family drama.
The weather bureau forecasts heavy showers. Bring lots of tissue paper! That Nick Cassavetes '(The Notebook') directs is indication enough, but much credit must go to the plot and concept of 'My Sister's Keeper', a moving drama adapted from Jodi Picoult's book of the same name.
‘My Sister’s Keeper’ tells the tears and joys of a family with a dying teenager, Kate Fitzgerald, and her younger sister, Anna, whose body has literally kept her alive.
Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), an acute promyelocytic leukemia sufferer, would have died at a young age had her parents not produced a genetically matching sibling via in vitro fertilization. Anna (Abigail Breslin) has been probed, prodded and extracted since an early age. At 13, she's faced with her sister dying unless she donates a kidney which would restrict her own life. Anna turns to attorney Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) who represents her as she sues for medical emancipation from her parents.
This may be a family scarred by their focus on Kate, but it's that conflict versus how much they love each another that produces the most dramatic scenes. Extra salutes to the writer for the twist in the tale.
It was good to find Cameron Diaz escaping romantic comedy and unafraid to play her age in the role as the mother. It was, by far, her best acting to date. Baldwin plays Baldwin but nice to see him stepping into this less familiar genre.
Hearts (and not kidneys) will be stolen by the children.