Movie review: 'My Sister's Keeper'
My Sister’s Keeper
2.5 stars
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
Based on the novel by Jodi Picoult
Starring Abigail Breslin, Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason Patric, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack
By Mina Hochberg
On the one hand, “My Sister’s Keeper” is a wrenching drama that explores provocative notions about the human capacity — or more specifically, incapacity — to accept death. On the other hand, the movie features a doctor who offers a dying girl a last chance at life, and his name is (seriously) Dr. Chance.
“My Sister’s Keeper,” adapted from Jodi Picoult’s bestselling novel, is shamelessly, heavyhandedly devastating. You wish you could shake director Nick Cassavetes, who also directed “The Notebook,” by his shirt lapels and ask why he is so intensely focused on making his viewers cry. As excessively lugubrious as “My Sister’s Keeper” is, though, its potent emotions and moral explorations have undeniable heft.
The impressive Abigail Breslin stars as Anna, an 11-year-old girl who was conceived by her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) for the purpose of donating blood and body parts to her older sister, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who is dying of cancer. As Kate falls sicker, Anna one day serves her parents with court papers: She’s tired of donating and wants medical emancipation. The resolution to this unfathomably delicate situation is, of course, fraught with emotion.
Through flashbacks and present-day scenes, “My Sister’s Keeper” concerns itself less with the courtroom proceedings and more with the moments that pass between family members, whether over dinner or in the hospital room, when mortality is an undertone to every word and action.
Unfortunately, Cassavetes coats every molecule of the film with a self-conscious sorrow, and a lot of it — from music to dialogue — is a bit much. Also, the film is oddly stylized for such a sober subject: First-person narration is inconsistently divvied up between characters; scenes are clipped short; music is contrivingly upbeat at downbeat moments. A number of conversations are shot through window panes or across rooms, as though Cassavetes wants to remind you that you’re an outsider looking in. I’m not sure what this outsider perspective serves in such an intimate film.
Despite its imperfections, “My Sister’s Keeper” is too sincere to dismiss completely. It is certainly a welcome relief from this summer’s robot movies.
