Movie review: My Sister’s Keeper

by Alex Bentley

There's counter-programming and then there's counter-programming. The summer movie season always has its fair share of films that buck the normal blockbuster trend in order to differentiate themselves. Just last week, The Proposal successfully appealed to the right crowd to nab the #1 box office spot. But there are some films that truly should only be released at a certain time of the year, and My Sister's Keeper now heads that list. What genius studio marketing executive decided that June (and the week Transformers opens, no less) would be the perfect time to release a movie about a kid with cancer and how her illness affects her family?

In case you're wondering, no spoiler alert was needed there since the kid in question, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), has cancer from the get-go (something which shouldn't be a surprise since the film is based on the popular Jodi Picoult book). However, despite having the deadly disease, Kate is only the indirect focus of the film. Oh, sure, everything in the film is colored by her situation, but so much time is spent away from her that it's no wonder Vassilieva gets fifth or sixth billing.

No, the stars of the film are Abigail Breslin, playing Anna, the titular “keeper,” and Cameron Diaz as mom Sara, taking on her first truly dramatic role since 2002's Gangs of New York. The majority of the film is spent on their two opposing sides of a key familial issue. Sara is willing to do anything and everything to save Kate's life, including genetically engineering another child (that would be Anna) to be able to donate bodily fluids and/or parts to her sister. Anna, now 11, has decided that enough is enough and sues her parents for medical emancipation; that is, the right to control her own body.

The film unfolds in such a way that one gets the feeling that much effort was made by co-writer/director Nick Cassavetes and co-writer Jeremy Leven to stay true to the book. Unfortunately, if true, it was a wasted effort, as the flashback structure in film form only serves to take away from the drama, not enhance it. We enter the story just as Kate, at age 16 or so, is nearing a crucial point in her disease that requires a kidney transplant. The film proceeds to jump back and forth in time to various points in her and the family's life. In book form, the flashback method makes perfect sense for this kind of story. But for some reason, there's just something missing when it's employed here. Dealing with cancer should evoke all sorts of emotions, but the film mostly whiffs on its tear-jerking opportunities.

Part of the reason for this is the film's misuse of its elements, both storytelling-wise and actor-wise. Anna's court fight is alternately treated as the most important thing in the film and then just a throwaway part (Alec Baldwin, as Anna's lawyer, makes the most of his time, but because of the hit-and-miss nature of his subplot, he's given short shrift). We are shown several scenes of Anna and Kate's brother, Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who appears to be conducting some kind of shady business on street corners (Begging? Drug dealing? Prostitution?), but those scenes are never directly connected to anything, leaving the audience to fill in the gaps. And Jason Patric, who plays the father, Brian, is dealt the worst hand of anybody in the film, generally only serving as a sounding board for Diaz, whose histrionics dominate much of the film.

All of this makes it sound like My Sister's Keeper is an awful film, which it's not. It's just not a very effective one. Breslin and Vassilieva demonstrate the most skill of any of the actors, which is crucial since they're also the youngest. They, along with Ellingson, show a true sibling bond that demonstrates their acting abilities, but those moments are few and far between. Instead, the film beats you down with an almost relentless negativity and never takes full advantage of its inherent emotionality.

All of which brings us back the film's release date. It's hard to say if it would have been better received in, say, the fall, but it would have been nice to see them try. There's also the question of whether anyone really wants to pay money to see this depressing of a film. Would it have fared better as a Lifetime movie of the week? Alas, we'll never know.