“My Sister’s Keeper”
2 out of 5 Stars
Stars: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language and brief teen drinking.
Running Time: 108 minutes
It’s not about living with cancer. It’s about dying from cancer. Worse yet, “My Sister’s Keeper” is about a nubile teenage girl with bee-stung lips dying from cancer — and the toll it takes on her family.
Brought to you by the flagrant manipulator who jerked your tears through “The Notebook,” director-co-writer Nick Cassavetes adapts Jodi Picoult’ novel for more chick-aimed melodrama. He tackles another relatable, humane story about love and loss here. And this time, Cassavetes explores some fresh moral and legal questions through a premise involving genetic engineering, tissue donation and a minor’s rights.
But he can’t resist the glossy, glamorizing embellishments that exploit terminal illness for popcorn fodder. Glowing sunset beach romps, prom prep and corny montages mix with chemo-induced vomiting. A schmatzy/sad soundtrack of downbeat ballads plays over and relentless/pretentious voiceovers by the various characters narrate over too many images of bald, bloody children on death’s door.
Even if that stuff does force an emotional reaction, it’s just so vulgar.
Some of the situations seem starkly real. But the way they get presented is pure Hollywood.
Only in Hollywood can a fireman and his unemployed wife live in a mansion with a huge yard in sunny Los Angeles. And only in the movies could such people look exactly like Jason Patric (as father Brian) and Cameron Diaz (who just barely has the chops to be portraying mother Sara).
Diaz appears so taut and tiny, groomed and shiny, to be playing the desperate mother of three adolescents — including a nearly suicidal son Jesse (Evan Ellingson), a leukemia-stricken daughter Kate (sensitively played by Sofia Vassilieva), and a child she conceived to provide tissue for Kate.
After involuntarily giving up umbilical blood, bone marrow and other spare parts since birth, Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) draws the line when her single-minded mother comes for her kidney. The 11-year-old hires a flamboyant ACLU attorney (Alec Baldwin) to sue for her medical emancipation.
The script, by Jeremy Leven along with Cassavetes, examines the thought-provoking ethical issues well. Effective subplots concern how surprisingly personal the case becomes to Baldwin’s character and to the judge (Joan Cusack) plus the romantic relationship the sickly Kate strikes up with a fellow patient (Thomas Dekker).
But everything’s clouded by a faux grief, packaged for your viewing pleasure. As one who’s seen cancer death in person, I can’t call this rendering a “Keeper.”
