Reviewed by Anne Wollenberg
Stars Cameron Diaz, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, Abigail Breslin, Sofia Vassilieva, Jason Patric, Evan Ellingson
Written by Jeremy Leven & Nick Cassavetes,
based on the novel by Jodi Picoult
Certification UK 12A | US X
Runtime 109 minutes
Directed by Nick Cassavetes
They nearly pulled it off. This adaptation of Jodi Picoult’s best-selling novel is gripping, emotionally satisfying, well-paced and well-scripted, right up until the point it ditches the novel’s ending in favour of a pointless, wet finale.
My Sister’s Keeper neatly combines tear-jerking family drama with moral debate. The questions it asks are perhaps too big, too complex for anyone to answer. But for the Fitzgerald family, they must be answered. Kate (Vassilieva) has cancer. She’s dying. Younger sister Anna (Breslin) was conceived as a perfect match for Kate, but after a lifetime of being prodded and poked and forced to undergo medical procedures to help her sister, she’s had enough. Anna finds herself a lawyer, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), and sues for medical emancipation. Crusading crazy-bitch-mom Sara (Cameron Diaz) is deeply unimpressed and assumes the case will be summarily dismissed. But it’s not.
Told largely through flashbacks and a few courtroom scenes, it’s an excellent, heart-wrenching study of a family falling apart. Sara has ploughed all her energy into fighting Kate’s battles for her, leaving little attention for her other children. Kate’s illness has taken over all their lives; in one understated scene, son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) realises nobody has noticed he’s been missing for several days when any other kid would have been in deep trouble.
The dilemma Sara and husband Brian (Jason Patric) face is an impossible one: do you do everything you can to save the child whose life is in danger, even if that means your other children have to make sacrifices? When do you stop? In one scene in the novel, Sara makes Anna leave a birthday party, telling her: “Your sister is more important than jelly and ice-cream.” It’s a throwaway line that didn’t make it into the movie, but a telling one that says much about how Sara prioritises the lives and wishes of her children.
Had it stuck with the novel’s ending, the film would have underlined its point perfectly and dramatically. It’s a shocker of a finish, and by shying away from using it the film completely loses focus. Forget those big questions, those huge dilemmas that will separate viewers depending on their own lives, families and catalogues of loss. Forget the biggest mistake Sara has made, the failure to recognise that both of her daughters are important and both are mortal, as it becomes nothing more than schmaltz. It’s still a very good drama for the most part, but the final scenes leave much to be desired.