Thursday, October 6, 2011

Movie Review - My Sister's Keeper

I have managed to get emotional since I had a son and stepped into recovery. I am unsure of which of these two events caused me to get a heart, or if it was a combination of both of them. The short story is that now I care, now I cry, now I allow myself to feel. Generally this translates into a tear here or there during a movie. After all, I am a movie guy. I love movies, even ones that have no redeemable value. This movie was quite different.

I just watched a movie that ripped my heart out, from start to finish. It was one of the most emotional movies that I have ever seen. It tugged at my heart as both a parent and a care giver. It touched on some important ethical concerns that in some cases need to be addressed. I was amazed at the dark nature of the movie, but it is about a young girl who is diagnosed with Leukemia. Enough said.

The movie consists of a family of five. There are three children, oldest child is son Jesse. Then there are the two daughters, Kate is the middle child with Leukemia and Anna is the youngest. Anna was genetically engineered by her parents to be a perfect donor for her sister Kate. She has been a donor for her sister her entire life. There are a lot of flashbacks and montages through out the movie that point to how Jesse was ignored and Anna's feelings and the pain she endured were never taken into account by either of her parents.

Anna has gone to an attorney to get medically emancipated so that her parents can no longer harvest her body against her will. They have taken a lot from her over the years, and this time Kate needs a kidney. It is interesting to see the love that is still shown by Anna to her sister and the love that she receives in return from Kate. Her mother, who is an attorney, is willing to take the case to court. How dare her daughter not want to give her kidney to save her sister's life.

Through the court case we see the interactions that the family has had with each other and how Kate's Leukemia has caused them to grow closer together. We also see the pain that Kate has gone through in relationships and in her disease. There is a boy who also had cancer that she had a romance with that is replayed through flash sequences.

The movie has raw emotions that are laid out before us by some pretty superb acting. The plot continues along as the case is taken to court and the initial shock of Anna's announcement continues to ripple through the family. There is humor that is interspersed through out the movie, and it flowed well.

I do not want to give away that much of the movie, I guess that this review is simply to tell you that it ripped my heart out. It will probably have the same effect on you. It was a tear jerker, and there was a good story to go with it. It shows how some parents will do anything for their children, and often the child's own concerns and best interests are not taken into consideration.

Sometimes we as parents do what is best for us, and what we perceive is best for our kids. I grew up with kids who hated playing football (or basketball, baseball, cheerleading). They practiced all year long and went to camps for the sport from elementary school all the way through high school, and hated every minute of it. They only played it to make their parents happy. When they tried to talk to their parents about not playing, they were never listened to and taken seriously. That cannot be!

I guess that what stood out to me most in this movie was my responsibility as a parent. I have a responsibility to look out for the best interests of all of my children. I should never put one before the other, and I should always make sure that what they are doing is something that they want to do. It should not be for me or because of what I think is important.

 There will always be things our children want to do that they cannot, that is a no-brainer. What I am saying is that we should listen to our kids and not live out our fantasies through them. This movie made me think of the children that are never given a choice, but instead expected to do what their parents want without taking what they want into consideration. It is also a scary look at the ethical dilemmas that we could theoretically face thanks to our advances in technology.

All in all, I give this movie an A-. There are definitely some lapses in the story that is told, but Abigail Breslin and Sophia Vassalieva are exceptional as Anna and Kate respectively. Alec Baldwin is great as the attorney hired and Joan Cusack does well as the judge. Jason Patric is believable as a dad torn between supporting his children and backing up his wife. Finally, Cameron Diaz plays the mother bent on saving her daughter's live no matter what very well. There was some offensive language, some underage misbehavior, alcohol and some graphic hospital and health related scenes.

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