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Movie:		4.0
Picture:		7.0
Sound:		6.0
Extras:		5.0
Score:		5.0

Director(s):	Nick Cassavetes
Writer(s):	Jeremy Leven and Nick Cassavetes
Starring:	Abigail Breslin • Alec Baldwin • Cameron Diaz • Sofia Vassilieva • Jason Patric
Genre:	Drama
Website:	http://www.mysisterskeepermovie.com/
Release Date:	November 17, 2009
Rated:

List Price:	Blu-ray - $19.99
Amazon:

Nick Cassavetes likes plucking heartstrings and he’s not afraid to dig into your chest to do so. Unfortunately, the digging is sort of a laborious process and it can take Cassavetes an hour or two to even scratch the surface. Maybe you were swept away by his romantic tale of Alzheimers-afflicted love in The Notebook? It did have a surprisingly strong cast (Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling and James Garner) and whether you like the movie or not, chances are your body either produces a healthy share of estrogen and you loved the film or your body doesn’t but someone from the first category insisted you watch it. Yet, he also directed Alpha Dog, so his tendencies towards emotionally manipulative clearly aren’t his only option. My Sister’s Keeper, however, plays directly into his manipulative side; if you’re a crier then you’ll get that cathartic sobbing session that you need to keep yourself emotionally checked through another week of work.

A nice, introductory argument against breeding for tissue, the crux of My Sister’s Keeper centers on the eccentrically named Andromeda ‘Anna’ Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) who hires a smug, TV commercial lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) to medically emancipate her from the care of her parents so she can withdraw from her given role as the organ/tissue/blood donor for her cancer-stricken sister Kate(Sofia Vassilieva). Her rebellious decision comes like a slap in the face to her mother Sara (Cameron Diaz) who decides to flex her long-retired legal wherewithal to keep Anna as a medical meat market for her sister. Overseeing the case is a judge (Joan Cusack) whose recent loss of a child gives her a personal lean on the situation.

Anna wants to make her own choices. Sara wants all her children to live. Kate wants to soak in as much life as possible. Campbell wants to defend a girl’s right to have control over her own body. It’s a whirlwind of wants and desires and each one collides midair raining down emotional torrents on the heads of the audience. Now, somewhere in the midst of all this tearful confusion, we’re supposed to have overlooked a few key perspectives and failed to ask really simple questions. Or, looking at it another way, we’re supposed to care about the characters in a way the story doesn’t merit. Watching Anna and Kate struggle against the pigheaded “best interests” argument of the mother, we see that the goals of both daughters aren’t mutually exclusive. Never once does one openly harass the other (outside of typical sibling bickering) to get them to change their mind. The audience can see it all to clearly, but the mother just can’t seem to get the hint, and so the story lumbers towards the awkward courtroom exposition wherein the unspoken truth comes out.

It’s not a shocker. It’s not even remotely shocking. Couple the lack of tact in the final reveal with the ridiculous and unnecessary decoy that immediately precedes it and you have what should have been the film’s ending. Instead, it carries on an additional distance with a paltry attempt at introspection on behalf of Anna. It represents a level of self-awareness on the part of the film. Cassavetes knows it ends on a downer and attempts a ham-hended happy ending intended to satisfy the people who just need to feel good – but it’s a film about two girls dealing with cancer, it doesn’t need a happy ending. It needed an ending that respected its own story and it completely spit in the face of that idea.

The film doesn’t have much in terms of visual style. My Sister’s Keeper doesn’t really warrant the Blu-ray treatment as Cassavetes doesn’t imbue the film with any aesthetic appeal. It’s a straight up drama about cancer, so unless you really want to see the veins popping out of Kate’s neck as she vomits in a basin, you’d be just as well off buying the DVD version.

DVD Bonus Features

Unless you want the digital copy that comes with the Blu-ray version. Besides some additional footage which really only helps to milk the emotional of more salty droplets, there’s a sole extra feature worth your time, “From Picoult to Screen”. Follow the journey of Jodi Picoult’s process: how she writes, where she draws inspiration and the steps between writing a book and creating a film. I’m not a fan of Picoult’s writing, but this is the second or third extra like this I’ve seen and they’re always quite interesting as each author seems to have a unique perspective on how stressful or thrilling the page-to-screen process is.