Misery loves company. That at least is what the makers of My Sister’s Keeper, based on Jodi Picault’s 2004 bestseller, are hoping. It’s a film about the slow death of a child, a topic that the Victorians loved, but that is a tricky sell to modern-day cinemagoers wondering how best to enjoy themselves on a Friday evening.
Abigail Breslin plays Anna Fitzgerald, an unusually assertive and eloquent 11-year-old girl who walks into the office of flashy lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) and tells him that she no longer wishes to be a “donor child”. She was conceived by her parents – Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric) – in the hope that her blood, marrow and countless other bits of her body could help her elder sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) in her fight against leukaemia
Those procedures, which sometimes left her hospitalised for months on end, did not work. Now, asked to donate one of her kidneys to save Kate’s life, she risks being seen as a selfish monster by demanding what the lawyer calls “medical emancipation”.
All the actors — Breslin purposeful and alert; Diaz, scraped free of make-up and given a rare chance to do more than smile and be bodacious; Joan Cusack as a judge who is still in mourning for the early death of her daughter — are very good, but I do wish Kate and Taylor could have shared more screen time.
They look unusual — bald and without eyebrows. She suffers from nosebleeds, vomiting, skin that is mottled and blue. Even disfigured by illness, they look more rather than less like normal teenagers than the parade of glossy teenagers usually cast by Hollywood.
Both know full well that any bouts of good health they experience are likely to be temporary. Yet, together, for a brief while, they create a little haven of tenderness in a dark, foreshadowed world.
Until recently it might have seemed odd for us to imagine that such melancholic, tear-jerking fare would have much appeal. Lately though, millions of people have been following — consuming, even — the spectacle of Jade Goody’s early demise. Very many watched Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture and tried to keep abreast of how long he could keep up his battle against pancreatic cancer.
My Sister’s Keeper, like all tearjerkers, works as a ritual as much as it does art. It offers us an occasion to think about friends and family members close to us, those who are sick or who have passed away. And, in the safety and solitude of a blackened public space, it gives us permission to cry our eyes out
My Sister's Keeper is about 13- year-old Anna Fitzgerald, who enlists the help of an attorney, Campbell Alexander, to sue her parents for rights to her own body. Anna was conceived as a donor for her sister Kate, who is 16 and has leukemia. Anna donated genetic material throughout her life, and the latest donation is for her to give a kidney to Kate. If she wins the lawsuit, she would not have to donate.
Her parents, Brian and Sara Fitzgerald, have different reactions to the suit. Brian has mixed feelings while Sara feels that Anna should donate the kidney. Sara is a lawyer turned housewife and decides to represent the parents' side in the suit. Sara attempts to get Anna to drop the suit, but Anna refuses and moves out of the house to the fire station where her father works. Jesse is Brian and Sara's son and the oldest child.
After Kate's cancer diagnosis, Jesse grows up to be a troublemaker involved in alcohol, drugs, theft, and arson. There has been an arsonist setting fires in the area that Brian and his fellow firefighters have been putting out. The arsonist is revealed to be Jesse, and Brian finds out the truth after finding clues. Brian confronts Jesse and learns how badly Kate's illness has hurt him. Brian vows to keep Jesse's arson a secret. Jesse eventually straightens himself out and becomes a police officer.
The judge at the hearing, Judge DeSalvo, is a parent who lost his child in a drunk-driving accident. The guardian ad litem assigned to Anna as her representative is Julia Romano, an old girlfriend of Campbell's.
Julia and Campbell met in a private high school. She was a scholarship student from a poor background while he was a rich kid. They fell in love and enjoyed a relationship until Campbell broke up with her at graduation. Julia never knew the reason but felt it was because of her social class. They meet again because of Anna's case. Although they try to conduct court business, their attraction to each other is obvious.
Campbell has a guide dog named Judge even though Campbell seems to have no disabilities. He keeps the purpose of the dog a secret. Julia and Campbell spend the night together with Campbell being the first one to leave. Feeling abandoned again, Julia is frustrated about her relationship with Campbell when he has a seizure during Anna's testimony. The purpose of the dog is to be a seizure dog. She discovers Campbell developed epilepsy after a wreck before graduation, and he broke up with her because he did not want to be a burden. She supports him, and they reunite. They eventually marry.
Campbell and Sara bring in their witnesses and battle over whether Anna is mature enough for medical emancipation. Julia, who is supposed to deliver a report about who she thinks should win, is undecided. Anna, who has refused to testify, is the last witness to speak. She reveals that Kate was suicidal and did not want Anna to go through with the transplant. That is why Anna started the lawsuit. The judge decides for Anna and gives Campbell medical power of attorney over her.
Anna and Campbell get in a wreck after leaving the courthouse, and Brian is one of the rescue workers called to the scene. Despite their best efforts to save Anna, the doctor says she is brain dead, so her parents take her off life support. Not knowing about the case, the doctor suggests organ donation. Campbell says her kidney should go to Kate. Kate gets the kidney and makes a recovery, living a normal life as a dance teacher and grateful for her sister's gift