My Sister's Keeper

My Sister’s Keeper is the weepfest movie of the summer, but it has more going for it than that.

Abigail Breslin stars as Anna - a young girl born through in vitro fertilization and genetically engineered to help provide donor items to her sister, Kate (Sofia Vassillieva), who has a rare form of leukemia. However, Anna wants to lead a more normal life, and wants to stop the constant poking, prodding, surgeries and other invasive procedures that are wearing her down and might start to affect her future life. With nowhere else to turn, and a mother (Cameron Diaz), who is solely focused on Kate, Anna hires a lawyer, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), who wants to medically emancipate the 11-year old.

What will happen to the family when one daughter doesn’t want to help the other anymore?

How long does Kate have?

While writer/director Nick Cassavetes and writer Jeremy Leven (from the novel by Jodi Picoult) sometimes lose track of the court case in favor of some old fashioned tearjerking moments, those moments are driven by a well established family drama that makes it feel natural and compelling. Each character helps to tell the story with voiceovers and remembrances that could only come from each one’s perspective (except the mostly silent Aunt, who happens to be the director’s wife, gotta love nepotism), which helps the audience understand what every member of the family is thinking, while also providing a more well rounded view of the story. The audience learns about each character’s sadness, anger, guilt and more, which makes My Sister’s Keeper more of an ensemble piece, instead of focusing solely on the sick kid.

However, I do wish Cassavetes and Leven spent more time examining this massive ethical and moral dilemma. To me (and this is the guy inside me trying to avoid all of the tears and emotion), it’s more fascinating than the standard drama that intentionally wants to start the waterworks. It’s a plotline which forces the audience to wonder what they would do in that situation, question what is the “right thing” to do, and examine the consequences of each possibility. It’s alot of thinking, but that’s not always bad.

Cassavetes takes the melodrama a little too far at times, but the actors and audience are game for it, so you won’t hear too many complaints from inside the theater.

My Sister’s Keeper is rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language and brief teen drinking.