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List Price: $28.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 77
Released: November 17, 2009 |
| Our Price: $11.75 |
| Used Price: $10.74 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
SARA AND BRIAN FITZGERALD'S LIFE WITH THEIR YOUNG SON AND THEIR TWO-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER, KATE, IS FOREVER ALTERED WHEN THEY LEARN THAT KATE HAS LEUKEMIA. THE PARENTS' ONLY HOPE IS TO CONCEIVE ANOTHER CHILD, SPECIFICALLY INTENDED TO SAVE KATE'S LIFE.
Description of My Sister's Keeper:
Grab a box of tissues and settle in for a heart-wrenching exploration of illness, morality, and familial bonds in this excellent screen adaptation of bestselling author Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. When parents Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric) find out that their daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has leukemia, they make the difficult choice to utilize the advancements of modern medicine and impregnate Sara with a child genetically ensured to be a donor match for Kate. Throughout the many years of dealing with Kate's illness, the needs of individual family members--including Kate's parents, her brother Jesse (Evan Ellingson), and her sister Anna (Abigail Breslin)--are largely ignored in light of Kate's more serious needs. Still, Kate's sister Anna rarely complains about helping Kate, even when it involves undergoing painful bone marrow aspirations. Recently, however, Anna has had a change of heart and has decided to stand up for her right to have a say in medical procedures involving herself: she's enlisted a lawyer, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), to help her sue her parents for medical emancipation. The issue is highly emotional and the familial strife is further compounded by the fact that Kate is quickly failing and needs an immediate kidney transplant for even a chance of continued survival. The emotional struggle of dealing with serious illness while trying to meet one's own needs permeates the film, as do the staggering moral dilemmas inherent in the advances of modern medicine. While Picoult's readers may be disappointed that the film doesn't delve as deeply into Anna's and Jesse's characters as the book does, My Sister's Keeper is nonetheless an intensely powerful film bursting with emotion and moral quandary that leaves viewers pondering what lengths they might go to in a similar situation. --Tami Horiuchi
My Sister's Keeper Reviews:
I lost sympathy about midway... 
2009-11-24 - It was all a bit gross looking at this cadaverous, graying, retching child wasting away, suffering at the hands of her mother's obssesive wish to keep her alive on a puppet string. I thought the mother (Cameron Diaz) was mildly sadistic, prolonging her family and her child's suffering (she wasn't supposed to live past age 5 if not for her newborn's sister's organ donations) to the point where I just couldn't root for the mother's cause anymore. Her child was no longer living a real life but ekeing out an existence of misery and physical pain with occassional swathes of happiness as the disease wracked her body way and the mother forced it past its expiration date, threatening the sanity of the rest of the family. And that horrible doctor! He was one of the authors of it all pushing the family to their utmost limits to save a child (without alleviating her pain) who was inevitably bound to die young.
The person who loved best was indeed the baby sister who only did what she did to fulfill her sisters last wishes.
Fifteen Tissue Film 
2009-11-22 - I read Jodi Picoult's book, My Sister's Keeper, so I thought I'd be prepared for this film. I wasn't.
A child with leukemia is tough subject matter no matter what format one uses to convey the story. Both the novel and the film had flaws, but neither had the flaw of storytelling. Anyone with an interest in family dynamics and can stomach the truly heart-wrenching drama of how disease interferes with the dream of a perfect family, will find meaning in this film. If the material is too sensitive--too painful--stay away.
The flaw I found in the book was the lack of physical character description. This, by the way, is evident in nearly all the Picoult novels I've read. The film version of My Sister's Keeper, of course, gives one faces and voices. The acting--particularly by Sophia Vassilieva (Kate) and Abigail Breslin (Anna) certainly adds to the poignancy and the story. ** I didn't go through as many tissues while reading.** But overall, I didn't like the adaptation--the indecision on behalf of the writers on whether or not to stick to the individual characters' first-person narratives (as they do in the opening scenes) or to take it to a series of present-day scenario to a series of flashbacks. The ending was also changed.
Overall, even though it's not a film I'd watch again, I'm glad I saw it--especially to put faces on the characters. Bravo to the casting crew.
Michele Cozzens is the author of It's Not Your Mother's Bridge Club.
One of the few
2009-11-21 - This is one of the few movie in a year one will remember. Intelligent and profound dialog from the beginning til the end.
Very good acting from Mrs Diaz but aslo by the young actors in this movie. It will touch your heart and raise ethical and moral questions about our everyday life, I just love this movie and recommanded it to anyone,
Well 
2009-11-20 - I have not yet watched the movie. Though I have read the book. It was a very important way to look at different siuations that can happen in your life. You have to look at it through different eyes. Please read the book before you put a BS reponse about the movie for I am sure it does not explain like the book does on what is really happening. Written by Judy Picoult. Read it before you judge it.
2.5, So-So Movie, Book Was Better! 
2009-11-18 - Why even follow a story from a book if it won't be followed as the book does??!! The movie was poorly done, jumping around from present, to past without a good flow. The story was ok because it did follow the book, at least through a good portion of it. Although, I don't recall Kate and her boyfriend getting naked in the book.
I agree with other reviewers who have read this book, the movie ending sucked! One thing about Picoult's books, they are usually thought provoking. This movie lacked anything causing such a reaction. All it did was play on heart strings.
Glad I didn't waste money at the movies or buying this. Its a rental movie..nothing more.
Read the book!
