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88The movie never says so, but it's a practical parable about the debate between pro-choice and pro-life. If you're pro-life, you would require Anna to donate her kidney, although there is a chance she could die, and her sister doesn't have a good prognosis. If you're pro-choice, you would support Anna's lawsuit.
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88The strength of the acting and the modulation of the screenplay transforms what could have been a run-of-the-mill Lifetime disease-of-the-week movie into something more insightful and intelligent.
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80For all its awkward structure, the film is heartfelt and deeply affecting.
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75A high-class weepie for adults who disdain the lower forms of four-hankiedom.
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70If you're going to make a weepy, there's no reason you can't make it with intelligence and insight as the makers of My Sister's Keeper have done.
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The interesting ethical and moral issues of the situation are hashed out in courtroom scenes (with Joan Cusack as the judge!) that devolve into hysteria in jarring contrast to a sensitively handled death scene that soon follows.
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63Diaz gets her own voice-over monologue, as does Patric - the different points of view functioning like stanza refrains, born in shared familial anguish.
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63There's no point mincing words: My Sister's Keeper is a difficult film to watch. That's not to say it isn't well-assembled, well-cast or well-acted.
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60Within this structurally baggy weepie, at least two perfectly good movies fight to break free, one a provocative legal thriller, the other a melodrama.
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58Their message (Cassavetes and screenwriter Jeremy Leven) in My Sister's Keeper? Cancer sucks, but there's always the balm of beach scenes and an emo soundtrack.
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50The harder this assault weapon went at my tear ducts, the more duct tape I wrapped around them as a defensive measure.
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50You might call My Sister's Keeper manipulative, and you would not be inaccurate.
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50A lighter hand would have enhanced some very good performances.
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50Should be shown in theaters that offer seats with tissue dispensers built right into the arm rests.
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50Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva are terrific. But the performances by the older actors are largely forgettable.
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50A pall of disaster, in fact, hangs over everyone in this shapeless, hankie-wringing adaptation of the best-selling Jodi Picoult novel.
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Finally, it's more a cautionary tale about the dangers of what can happen when a bad movie happens to a popular novelist than a keeper for the ages.
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50A bit like a real-world horror film with "heart," right down to the trick ending.
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50Anyone who watched (and probably wept his or her way through) the swoony 2004 melodrama "The Notebook" knows Cassavetes is not a man to leave a spot of sap untapped, and in My Sister's Keeper, he pulls out a very big drill indeed.
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You don't usually see this unblinking attention to the progress of physical decay in a PG-13 wide-release movie, and to the degree that it represents a real aspect of human experience generally curtained out of sight, it is, in the language of movie people, a brave decision. But makeup department realism alone can't redeem the dramatic fallacies surrounding it.
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There is always a fine line between moving and manipulation in telling heartbreaking stories, and it is here that Cassavetes largely fails us. Where restraint might have raised up My Sister's Keeper, a heavy hand has brought it down.
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50My Sister's Keeper takes on a very tough subject -- and has, in Anna and Kate, two pretty tough characters played by strong young actresses -- but ultimately it is too soft, too easy, and it dissolves like a tear-soaked tissue.
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50Unsubtle, uneven and undeniably effective, this take-no-prisoners cancer weepie poses a fascinating moral quandary.
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50Surrounding and ultimately subsuming this ethical struggle is a fair amount of pediatric-cancer horror and mush, though Cassavetes is frequently bailed out by his cast (Diaz is admirably unpleasant as the controlling mother, and Joan Cusack is unusually tough and restrained as the presiding judge).
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42It would take a heart of stone not to be affected by My Sister's Keeper, but the film's unceasing manipulation has a Medusa effect on the organ.
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40Patric and Baldwin react to all the morbidity with restraint, and Vassilieva keeps her bald head high. But they won't be able to help this barefaced vulgarity earn any terms of endearment.
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38The infuriating cop–out ending reduces the premise to mush. I wanted to scream. Here goes: Arghh!
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25Has a gutsy premise, but no guts.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 36
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Mixed: 4 out of 36
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Negative: 8 out of 36
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