Entertainment
Email
Print
'Keeper' goes for the heart early and often
AP Photo
Cameron Diaz (left) plays a tough, single-minded mother caring for her ill daughter, Kate (played by Sofia Vassilieva).
ADVERTISEMENT
|
||
My Sister’s Keeper • Stars: Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva, Alec Baldwin, Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric, Evan Ellingson, Thomas Dekker. • Director: Nick Cassavetes. • Rating: PG-13 • Running time: 103 minutes. • Showing: Grand 18, Wynnsong 12, Carmike 10, Creekside. • Reviewer's opinion Vassilieva and Breslin shine in this melodramatic tale of a family whose commitment to the health of one of their children takes precedence over all other considerations. |
||
|
||
(out of four)Published: June 25, 2009
LOS ANGELES - My Sister's Keeper is a shameless weepie, one of the most manipulative and fundamental of genres, but it also raises some surprisingly difficult and thought-provoking ethical questions.
Based on the Jodi Picoult best-seller, the drama focuses on the Fitzgerald family, and the drastic decision they made in medically engineering a child (Abigail Breslin) as a perfect genetic match to help save the life of their older daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia. Ordinarily, this sort of material would seem better suited for television, but there is an artfulness to the storytelling that makes it work on the big screen.
For years, little Anna provided blood, bone marrow, whatever Kate needed. She did it because she loved her sister, and because it's all she ever knew. Now at 11, with Kate needing a kidney, Anna says no for the first time. Beyond that, she files a lawsuit seeking medical emancipation from her parents to keep them from making further decisions about her body. Alec Baldwin provides a few welcome flashes of comic relief as the dryly arrogant lawyer she chooses from his TV commercials.
Director Nick Cassavetes co-wrote the script with Jeremy Leven, the writer of Cassavetes' The Notebook.
The conflict is traced through flashbacks from various characters' perspectives: bulldog matriarch Sara (Cameron Diaz), whose priority is preserving Kate's life at all costs; father Brian (Jason Patric), who is patient and supportive no matter what; only son Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who feels lost in the shuffle; and Kate and Anna themselves. Cassavetes probably relies a bit too heavily on voiceover from them all explaining the obvious: that they're a dysfunctional family, but they still manage to stick by each other.
Cassavetes tugs at the heartstrings, which has become a trademark of his work, providing opportunities to yank out the hankies early and often. But he also wisely refrains from demonizing any of these characters for their choices and lets us draw our own conclusions.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel helps bring a gauzy melancholy to these heavy proceedings, especially during a pivotal scene at the beach toward the end.
Diaz gives a vanity-free performance as Sara, but she doesn't quite have the gravitas to make the courtroom scenes or the darker moments feel entirely believable.
Breslin is typically bright and poised beyond her years, and here she gets a rare chance to play a character who could be viewed as cruel and selfish.
But she may actually get upstaged by the lovely Vassilieva, especially during the scenes in which Kate recalls the thrill of her first love with a fellow cancer patient (Thomas Dekker). This provides yet another chance to get choked up, because for all the beauty of their young romance, you know it can't last.
Email
Print
