Film Review

~ My Sisters Keeper ~

Based on Jodi Picoult’ best-selling novel, actor turned director Nick Cassavetes bring us this wonderfully life affirming drama about a families struggles with leukemia.

Anyone familiar with the book will know to expect a tear-jerking rollercoaster ride and with Cassavetes on hand with previous experience pulling at heart strings with the equally weepy The Notebook, you better have plenty of tissues on standby!

Abigail Breslin once again shows a maturity and talent well beyond her years playing Anna, a young girl who discovers her matching bone marrow – which could help fight her older sister Kate’s (Sofia Vassilieva) leukemia – may be the only reason for her existence.

In some ways watching the film felt very much like reading a book with its story told partly in flashbacks as Kate continues her hospital treatment, recalling memories from a handmade scrapbook. Viewpoints are broken into chapters looking at the strain the illness is putting on not only Kate but her entire family. Continuously using voiceover to add insight, which although at times felt like the obvious was being underlined, still managed to keep the scenes engaging, very rarely feeling disjointed.

The film asks a lot of questions without ever forcing any answers; both sides of the argument carrying equal weight. How far would you go to save a dying child’s life? At one point does it become too much? Is one child’s life more important than another? The unimaginable agonies of watching a child suffer and the extremes people will go to in order to save them no matter what the cost.

As is often the case, the person with the illness becomes the first to accept their fate, eventually having to become the stronger person as their family blindly fights on with new treatments when maybe they should be living to the fullest with what time they have left.

What saves the film from becoming overly sentimental is largely down to the emotionally charged performances from the cast, noticeably the three female leads but also from the understated role of Kate’s brother Jesse played by Evan Ellingson, both him and Sofia Vassilieva are definitely ones to watch out for! Cameron Diaz gets to sharpen her serious acting skills in a difficult role as the determined mother often reaching times of obsessive control over her dying daughter as Anna battles for her right’s to medical emancipation from her parents.

Alec Baldwin makes a welcome appearance as the showboating high profile lawyer willing to fight in Anna’s corner offering a few light hearted laughs to balance the tone. Also one of my favorite actresses, Joan Cusack gives a knockout performance as the family court judge. Although keeping her usual quirky persona she delivers one of the greatest scenes in the film, managing to say so much and bring across such feeling in a dialogue free moment with Anna. It really is breathtaking.

With music being the powerful tool that it is nobody could be blamed for using it to their advantage and it’s no surprise how it’s used in a film such as this. While the score remains reasonably subtle many of the songs from the soundtrack do at times feel like cues designed to trigger an emotional response, at times becoming quite corny. It’s a small gripe that goes relatively unnoticed on a first viewing though.

As we reach the inevitable end, watching as Kate and family spend a final day at the beach away from the confines of the hospital, the sequence is set to one of many lyrical musical accompaniments. It really is one of those perfect moments, a simple few hours that in any other situation people would let pass them by; the little things that make up what life is all about.

Well written, beautifully filmed with heavyweight performances all round. You will have to pay an emotionally high price but it’s worth every tear.

***