Movie Summary of My Sister’s Keeper by Michael The Moviegoer.
MY SISTER’S KEEPER = ***
“The Sisters Are Doing It”
The most fascinating thing about “My Sister’s Keeper” are the legal challenges presented by an 11-year old girl suing her parents for “medical emancipation”, or the rights to her own body. Unfortunately, this makes up about 40% of the movie. The other 60% plays like a standard old-fashioned TV Movie Of The Week weepie about someone who is dying from cancer.
Abigail Breslin (an Oscar nominee for “Little Miss Sunshine”) is the 11-year old girl suing her manipulative, overly-protective, borderline-psycho mom played by Cameron Diaz. The little girl hires Alec Baldwin as her attorney. The scenes between the three of them are the film’s best moments.
The reason for the lawsuit is that the little girl was genetically created to save her older sister who is dying of cancer. When the time comes for Breslin to give up a kidney to her sister, she protests and hires the lawyer.
Directed by Nick Cassavetes who, after this and “The Notebook”, seems to be the new master of the weepie. He really knows how to jerk those tears. But he seems to be sacrificing his artistic integrity to join the mainstream. I much prefer the gritty style of his earlier work such as “She’s So Lovely” which starred Sean Penn and John Travolta and was written by Nick’s dad, the great John Cassavetes.
But anyone looking for teary-eyed dramas will probably love this movie and not care too much about who directed it.
DVD Companion: Nick’s dad John Cassavetes once starred in a film called “Whose Life Is It Anyway” in which he played the doctor of a quadriplegic played brilliantly by Richard Dreyfuss. In this film, the patient is suing the hospital for the right to terminate his own life since he is competely paralyzed. A powerful drama with strong arguments on both sides of the life-and-death issue.
Michael The Moviegoer
