TEARS...BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY: a review of "My Sister's Keeper"

Originally written November 27, 2009

“MY SISTER’S KEEPER” Directed by Nick Cassavetes
**1/2 (two and a half stars)

I am certain you have seen that horrific commercial. You know the one I mean. The one with the montage of abused and injured cats and dogs and set to Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.” I HATE that commercial and if asked, I couldn’t even really tell you what it was advertising, as I tend to click the channel away from those awful images as soon as I hear the all-too familiar piano notes and see the first mangled puppy. I am certain that whoever is responsible for that advertisement is trying to elicit responsibility and action through the sheer force of brutal manipulation, something I tend to have a natural aversion to.

“My Sister’s Keeper,” the new film from Nick Cassavetes, (director of the love-story weepie “The Notebook”) and based upon the mammoth best-selling novel by Jodi Picoult, is that kind of a movie. A tearjerker that (almost) never allows the story to work naturally and to a degree, I am not even certain if it cares about its story that much. It is a big budget Lifetime movie designed to make you cry by any means necessary. It is as if the filmmakers have decided that if they have to extract every molecule of moisture from your tear ducts forcibly one-by-one, they will do just that.

Young Kate (played by Sofia Vassilieva) has been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and was not expected to live past the age of 5 years old. Her desperate parents, lawyer Sara (Cameron Diaz) and firefighter Brian (Jason Patric), decided on a path for Kate’s survival that could almost come straight out of science fiction. They would genetically engineer a child with the purpose of using said child to help keep Kate alive. As the movie opens, that child, Anna, (played by Abigail Breslin) has had enough. She has given bone marrow, blood and stem cells over her entire life and now she is faced with giving up one of her kidneys. She takes her savings of $700 to an attorney (a well-cast Alec Baldwin), whose television advertisements boast his %91 success rate, to assist her with becoming medically emancipated from any more procedures against her will.

The story and film begins with an intriguing premise and one that could extend itself to a strong ethical debate as well as an engaging and painful family drama. Issues of who has the right to live and die are front and center, while the varying family dynamics exist throughout. From a Mother whose entire focus is riveted upon Kate at the expense of everyone else, mostly her teenage son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) who is virtually ignored. To Anna, who truly loves her sister but honestly asks what the outcome of her life would be if she gives up her own kidney. And finally, to Kate herself, as she also has a secret compelling agenda, which indeed adds to the tension. Now imagine if this material were allowed to be played out in an honest fashion. As I have said before, all movies are manipulative but there is a fine line between good storytelling and cheap tricks and this film tries to have it both ways.

I have not read the novel from which this film is based, but I have been told that this particular melodramatic style is faithful to its source. OK, I’ll take that. This film certainly knows its audience and is willing to cater to that audience. But, for me, I couldn’t help but to feel that Cassavetes was cheating a bit with an over-reliance on the soft-focus cinematography meant to signify that Hallmark commercial melancholy and also an even more distracting over-reliance on montage sequences set to treacly pop-songs that are all about crying, sadness, loss and dying. When the actual script fails, another song is tossed onto the soundtrack and the effect is gagging.

This is also another one of those movies where EVERYONE is crying at some point, as if the sight of people in tears will bring forth tears from the audience by osmosis. It was something else that felt like a trick instead of just telling the story as honestly as it could. After sifting through the inner tragedies of all of the family members, we are then introduced to the courtroom Judge (Joan Cusack) who has her own inner tragedy to deal with and of course, we have to sit through her crying fits as well. When Kate has a brief love affair with another cancer ward patient, you will know the outcome the second he appears on screen. And then, there is the climactic courtroom scene late in the film that is just a sloppy construction of realizations, family confrontations and the clumsy reveal of Alec Baldwin’s inner tragedy. It was as if you have a three-layer cake that kept adding sickeningly sweet layers to it. The whole “more is more” philosophy the film seems to be taking just put me off.

Now, of course with all of this sadness running around, I am definitely not heartless. This is all a matter of taste, I realize. I am typically not a crier in movies but I will tell you that Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 1999 epic, “Magnolia” leaves me as a dishrag for the sadness and near operatic drama steamrolls over me. It is an over-whelming experience made by a master filmmaker, in my opinion (and it is also a film that has its equally passionate detractors). Of course, I was affected by the goings-on in “My Sister’s Keeper,” but I felt bludgeoned by the manipulation and I kept resisting and resisting.

However, the film has its qualities. Again, I felt that Cassavetes knows whom the audience of this film and story is intended for and he caters to them well with an admittedly handsome production. All of the actors perform well within the confines of their thinly drawn-out characters. Diaz is an effective Mother Lioness while also living in denial in regards to life’s natural cycle. Patric is appropriately stoic while all three children are cherubic and virtuous.

And of course, there is the controversial ending! Do not worry, dear readers, I will not spoil here. I had been fully informed of the book’s ending before I saw this film and there was a brief uproar over the film as Cassavetes reported in many interviews that he had changed the book’s ending for his film. Surprisingly, the change of the ending seemed to be the best and somehow, most natural move for a story that really didn’t have any natural moments in it.

To me, the new ending felt more honest, more truthful, more realistic and ultimately, it was an ending that deserved to have a better movie to support it. Sad songs and dying children, in and of themselves, just weren’t enough to make a fully-realized film for me. The drama is inherent to this sort of material, I didn’t need all of the cinematic tricks to force me feel what I should have been feeling naturally.