REVIEW: My Sister's Keeper (2009)
My Sister's Keeper
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 109 minutes
Starring: Cameron Diaz and Sofia Vassilieva.
My rating: 3 stars
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I imagine director Nick Cassavetes has sick puppies, weak children and returned engagement rings strewn around his house.
Since 2002, his directing resume boasts John Q, The Notebook, Alpha Dog and now My Sister's Keeper. All of them are serious, depressing dramas. I would think Cassavetes would want to get away from the genre someday.
But no, his latest film is perhaps the most melodramatic tearjerker to date. My Sister's Keeper relentlessly tries to pull you in until it finally grabs you, eats you up, spits you out and then stomps on you.
Simply knowing the director's previous work alerted me to the fact I would be destroyed by the end of this film. It was just a matter of how and when.
I even tried to not care about the cancer-ridden Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and her sister, Anna (Abigail Breslin), who was engineered in a dish for the sole purpose of donating organs, blood and whatever else Kate may need to survive. Anna is suing her parents for the rights to her own body when they try to force her to donate a kidney.
I did fine not caring about the characters until that damn love story came.
Kate meets Taylor (Thomas Dekker), a fellow struggling cancer patient. They're relationship buds and flourishes, and we see the love. That's where I finally caved, and said, “OK, You got me now Cassavetes. Don't make it too brutal on me.”
Did he listen? Absolutely not.
My Sister's Keeper is based on Jodi Picoult's novel of the same name. I have not read it, but I'm told the movie ends no where close to how the book does. I don't think audiences could handle how the book concludes. I could barely handle this movie, and credit the outstanding acting for that.
Diaz has finally showed she can do drama. She tried and was mildly successful with Being John Malkovich, failed in Vanilla Sky, but comes through here. She shows promise of longevity, especially with her next film, The Box.
Breslin again is wonderful. There's no surprise there. But the real star of this film is Vassilieva. If the audience doesn't buy her, then the whole movie falls flat. Thankfully, she captures a 16-year-old cancer patient beautifully. This will certainly make her dramatic career soar.
In the end, though, I have to look at Cassavetes need to hammer his points home. He even resorts to having the characters narrate how they are feeling. That choice, both in Cassavetes' screenplay and direction, shows why My Sister's Keeper doesn't rank with the great emotional dramas.
The audience doesn't usually need to hear the characters voice how they feel. They're able to feel the emotion. Cassavetes wants to make sure of it, and tells me that he hasn't quite matured as a writer/director quite yet. He's close. All his films have steadily increased in emotional power, but he still hasn't trusted his writing or direction in conveying emotions to the audience.
Really, that's the only downfall in My Sister's Keeper, but it's enough of one to turn me off to the film. While I was sucked in and drained by the end, it doesn't have the lasting effect or the power of a film like I Am Sam. Three stars.
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Where it's playing:
Canton/PotsdamSHOWTIMES
Watertown SHOWTIMES
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