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Movies / On DVD / My Sister's Keeper
My Sister's Keeper

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My Sister's Keeper (2009)

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Reviews Counted:125

Fresh:58

Rotten:67

Average Rating:5.6/10

Consensus: My Sister's Keeper gets fine performances from its adult and child actors, but the director's heavy-handed approach turns a worthy emotional subject into an overly melodramatic tearjerker.

Rated: 12A [See Full Rating] for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language, and brief teen drinking.

Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

Genre: Dramas

Theatrical Release:26-06-2009

Synopsis: THE NOTEBOOK's Nick Cassavetes directs another tearjerking literary adaptation with this drama based on Jodi Picoult's novel. Cameron Diaz takes a detour from comedy to play Sara, the domineering... THE NOTEBOOK's Nick Cassavetes directs another tearjerking literary adaptation with this drama based on Jodi Picoult's novel. Cameron Diaz takes a detour from comedy to play Sara, the domineering mother of Kate (Sofia Vassilieva, MEDIUM), a young girl with cancer. Sara’s other daughter, 11-year-old Anna (Abigail Breslin), was conceived just to serve as a donor for her sick sister. On the outskirts of the family are father Brian (Jason Patric), who feels unable to stand up to his wife’s strength, and son Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who craves attention in the face of Kate’s illness. But the complicated situation gets more difficult when Anna hires a lawyer (played by the always excellent Alec Baldwin), so that she can control her own body and say "no" to giving a kidney to her sister. Cassavetes and Picoult both traffic in tears, so MY SISTER’S KEEPER is a perfect match between director and source writer. Even the most jaded viewers will find it hard to keep their eyes dry in the face of this emotional family tragedy, so audiences are warned to have tissues parked next to their popcorn. This drama’s stellar cast also includes Thomas Dekker as Kate’s cancer-stricken love and Joan Cusack as the judge who presides over Anna’s case. [More]

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Sofia Vassilieva

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Sofia Vassilieva, Joan Cusack, Jason Patric, Thomas Dekker, Emily Deschanel, Lin Shaye

Director: Nick Cassavetes

Director: Nick Cassavetes
Screenwriter: Jeremy Leven, Nick Cassavetes
Producer: Mark Johnson, Chuck Pacheco, Scott L. Goldman
Composer: Aaron Zigman
Studio: Warner Bros.

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Reviews for My Sister's Keeper

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1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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A very satisfying, if emotionally draining, experience. Needless to say you should take a large box of hankies - plus a bottle of water so you can rehydrate afterwards.

Full Review Source: Daily Mirror [UK] | comment Comment
07/03/09
David Edwards
David Edwards
Daily Mirror [UK]

My Sister’s Keeper becomes a well-heeled weepie in which the family’s comfortable existence, despite the misfortunes of fate, is hardly challenged at all.

Full Review Source: This is London | comment Comment
07/03/09
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
This is London

An awkwardly structured but warmly emotional and relatively unsentimental drama.

Full Review Source: Screen International | comment Comment
06/22/09
John Hazelton
John Hazelton
Screen International

My Sister’s Keeper, like all tearjerkers, works as a ritual as much as it does art.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph | comment Comment
06/26/09
Sukhdev Sandhu
Sukhdev Sandhu
Daily Telegraph
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Tears will be shed as the promised courtroom drama is displaced by other developments - Joan Cusack almost steals the pic as the lachrymose judge who has lost a young daughter herself.

Full Review Source: Teletext | comment Comment
06/27/09
Victor Olliver
Victor Olliver
Teletext

My Sister’s Keeper ducks some of the bigger moral dilemmas, which may have added more grit. There again this is not a film with grit on its mind, just how quickly it can have you reaching for a handkerchief.

Full Review Source: Daily Express | comment Comment
07/03/09
Allan Hunter
Allan Hunter
Daily Express

This medical-ethics drama is like a sustained assault on the tear ducts.

Full Review Source: Independent | comment Comment
07/03/09
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Quinn
Independent

With direction this leaden and scripting this ham-fisted, my suspicion is that there will be far too many dry eyes in the house.

Full Review Source: Daily Mail [UK] | comment Comment
07/03/09
Christopher Tookey
Christopher Tookey
Daily Mail [UK]

You should consent to having treacle intravenously injected into your system sooner than go to see this Hollywood weepie.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
07/03/09
Edward Porter
Edward Porter
Sunday Times (UK)

Directed by Nick Cassavetes with a syrupiness that would, I imagine, have made his father John smack the New York sidewalks in fury.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
07/03/09
Jason Solomons
Jason Solomons
Observer [UK]

Full of clunky voiceovers, corny music and maudlin montages, this manipulative yarn plays with issues of medical morality and parental duty only to discard them in favour of a manipulative paean to valuing life and accepting death.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment Comment
07/03/09
Neil Smith
Neil Smith
Total Film

By the end we are screaming to yank our engines away from the forecourt as fuel spills – all that piano music, that gilded lighting, those glycerine tears – threatening a pyre of sense, sensibility and supersensitive subject choice.

Full Review Source: Financial Times | comment Comment
07/03/09
Nigel Andrews
Nigel Andrews
Financial Times

This movie cheapens the experience of a family struggling to come to terms with the impending loss of a loved one. Cry? I very nearly did. Just not in the way Cameron probably hoped.

Full Review Source: News of the World | comment Comment
07/03/09
Robbie Collin
Robbie Collin
News of the World

It would be tough not to shed a tear for any child forced to look death in the face, but it's also a crying shame that such a delicate matter ends up being treated with an uncertain heavy hand.

Full Review Source: Digital Spy | comment Comment
07/03/09
Stella Papamichael
Stella Papamichael
Digital Spy

Diaz is a whiny irrelevance, but sharp supporting work from Alec Baldwin and Joan Cusack makes the proceedings tolerable for boyfriends.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment 1 Comment
07/03/09
Vadim Rizov
Vadim Rizov
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Given how easily the filmmakers could have cranked up the string section and gone for the quivering lip in soft focus, their restraint is admirable.

Full Review Source: MSNBC | comment Comment
06/26/09
Alonso Duralde
Alonso Duralde
MSNBC

An adaptation that, although departing dramatically from such key elements as the book's ending, will please fans.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
06/26/09
Ann Hornaday
Ann Hornaday
Washington Post

I found the movie to be really tough and challenging and enjoyable.

Full Review Source: At the Movies | comment Comment
06/29/09
Ben Lyons
Ben Lyons
At the Movies

As an example of the age old Hollywood weeper as post-modern semi-serious character study, Nick Cassavete's My Sister's Keeper is too safe to be wholly successful, too powerful to be merely pushed aside.

Full Review Source: PopMatters | comment Comment
06/26/09
Bill Gibron
Bill Gibron
PopMatters

If My Sister's Keeper feels melodramatic and contrived, it is, at least, sincerely so.

Full Review Source: BrandonFibbs.com | comment Comment
06/26/09
Brandon Fibbs
Brandon Fibbs
BrandonFibbs.com
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by fresh rating; UK critics are listed first)
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Latest News for My Sister's Keeper

July 26, 2009: Win a poster signed by Cameron Diaz
How would you like to have a poster of Cameron Diaz on your wall -- signed by the lady herself? To celebrate this week's release of Cameron's latest film, My Sister's Keeper,... More...

June 27, 2009: Easily the most poignant picture of the year, achieved without resorting to manipulative soap opera devices. Opens in new window
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June 25, 2009: Critics Consensus: Transformers 2 Is Less Than Meets The Eye
This week at the movies, we've got robots in disguise (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, starring Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf) and a family in disrepair (My Sister's Keeper,... More...

June 25, 2009: Box Office Guru Preview: Transformers Set to Smash Records
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