My Sister's Keeper
Review
by Sean Lynch
Get the tissues ready!
On second thought, just grab yourself a ShamWow and glue that puppy directly onto your eye sockets... because My Sister's Keeper is gonna get you teary!
Based on the bestselling book from Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper
is a revealing and genuinely heart-breaking tale about family,
love and ultimately - the inconsistent definitions and perceptions of loyalty.
It follows a good-looking couple, Sarah and Brian Fitzgerald, whose life with their two children is forever changed when they
learn that their two year old daughter, Kate, has leukemia.
The parents' only hope for Kate's survival is to conceive
another child - but not just any child - a genetically engineered child to be used specifically to save Kate's life. But as their "6 Million Dollar Man" baby grows, the lines of morality become blurred.
The question: how much risk can you place on one child in order to save another?
Unlike any other film subject that relies on relatability to woo it's audience, My Sister's Keeper mines humanities greatest equaliser to ensure it kicks it's audience in the emotional guts : cancer.
Even
if you haven't been affected by it directly, someone you know has -
which means that each moment of this Picoult penned tome is gruelingly
painful.
Why? Because it's bound to stir up some old wounds that have been buried in the back of your mind.
That said, the sentimentality (a trademark of it's director who also brought us The Notebook)
that oozes throughout also helps highlight the bittersweet nature of
the adventure that is watching a loved one slowly die before your eyes.
Anyone
who has lived through such events will totally understand it's power
(and it's a feeling perfectly captured in a scene in which Kate walks
down the stairs of her home ready to attend her "prom").
There
is an odd sense of indescribable joy that you are somehow open to,
simply, by embracing the joy of each moment (knowing it could be your
loved ones last), juxtaposed with the sickening knowledge that the end
is inevitable.
The performances are great (when is Alec Baldwin ever not at his best?), the moral dilemmas thrown up are bound to arouse healthy discussion, and ultimately, My Sister's Keeper obtains exactly what it wants to elicit from it's audience... which means that it's a well made movie right?
No necessarily so...
Fans
of the novel will notice quite a few edits from the book. Some good
(including the book's original extended ending may have very well left
me wanting to slit my wrists, it is that friggin' depressing), some bad
(we never quite learn enough about Kate's father and brother, plus
the court case at the centre of the story is really thrown by the
wayside).
But the big problem here is that, more often than not,
the audience simply isn't given any respite from the emotional anguish
it persists on inflicting.
Folks looking for this generations Beaches (a movie guaranteed to make you cry), well you've got it with My Sister's Keeper.
And while it may be somewhat cathartic for those who have experienced
similar events in their lives - it sure as hell isn't a fun or
rewarding piece of viewing.
It is painful, emotionally draining and it's edited ending is nowhere near as uplifting as Cassavetes (or the studio) hoped it would be.
If
you're a sucker for punishment, by all means, have a good old fashioned
sob at the cinema - being reminded of how cruel the universe can be.
As
for me? I, along with every other male unfortunate enough to be dragged
along to this, might just repress those quaint little memories in the
back of my skull...
Until they explode, in a fit of rage, when I take up that unfulfilling job as a postal worker in thirty years time.
4 out
of 5
My
Sister's Keeper
Australian release: 30th July,
2009
Official
Site: My Sister's Keeper
Cast: Cameron Diaz, Abigail
Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Sofia Vassilieva
Director: Nick Cassavetes
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