You’d have to be fairly cold-hearted not to shed a tear or two during Nick Cassavetes’ My Sister’s Keeper. What with the dying teen (Sofia Vassilieva), the overwrought mother (Cameron Diaz) and the tortured, swelling soundtrack, it would be foolish to head to the cinema without some tissues on hand.
But this is a cancer story with a twist. The Fitzgerald family of four becomes five when the decision is made to have ‘designer baby’ Anna (Abigail Breslin), who has the genetic compatibility to donate vital stem cells and bone marrow to her sick sister Kate. Subjected to painful procedures from birth, eleven-year-old Anna secures the help of celebrity lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) to sue her parents for medical emancipation before she is forced to donate her kidney.
Adapted from quite a personal Jodi Picoult novel, the film makes the curious choice to keep the book’s multiple narrators. While the aim was no doubt to convey the individual impact this illness has had on the family, as well as Campbell’s understanding of Anna, the result is rather episodic and annoying.
Further sullying proceedings is the high melodrama mounted upon an already stricken storyline. Each supporting character is given a tragic subplot, the inclusion and direction of which both grates and hampers the nuance of every performance. Mercifully, however, Cassavetes and co-writer Jeremy Leven opted to alter the ending, which rescues the film with a dose of realism.
Despite these shortcomings, My Sister’s Keeper is a film filled with solid performances and good intentions. Much like his acclaimed film The Notebook (2004), Cassavetes manages to dole out the tears and the tragedy alongside some of life’s bittersweet humour, and a whole lot of love.
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This review also appeared in The Brag
Australian release date: 30 July 2009
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