My Sister’s Keeper
Family Drama (and Trauma)
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
When a bestselling novel makes the jump from the printed page to the big screen, fans inevitably compare the adaptation to the source material, often finding fault in the adaptation for a lack of faithfulness or fidelity to the novel. Sometimes, however, filmmakers err in the opposite direction, in sticking so closely to what they perceive are the novel’s unique qualities that they forgot that narrative techniques that work on the page often don’t work in a primarily visual medium like film.
Unfortunately, in adapting My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult’s bestselling novel, writer-director Nick Cassavetes (Alpha Dog, The Notebook, She’s So Lovely) made exactly that mistake, carrying over the narrative techniques and devices (e.g., multiple narrators, interior monologues, and a non-linear structure) that, instead of bringing moviegoers closer to the characters and their experiences, results in the opposite effect.
Cassavetes introduces each member of the Fitzgerald family through voiceover narration, starting with Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin). Anna was conceived as a “donor baby” for her older sister, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva). Kate suffered from leukemia from an early age and with no genetic matches to her immediate family, her parents, Sara (Cameron Diaz), a former attorney, and Brian (Jason Patric), a firefighter, took the radical step of having Anna conceived as a donor for her sister.
At eleven, Anna has undergone several procedures, including bone marrow transplants, to help her sister, but with Kate now needing a kidney transplant, Anna, concerned for her future well being, solicits the help of an attorney, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin). Alexander sues Sara and Brian for Anna’s medical emancipation, a decision, which granted, will give Anna autonomy over future medical decisions.
What starts out, however, as a legal drama centered on medical and ethical complications soon switches to a more conventional family drama, focusing on Kate from an early age through her teenage years, the early years in Sara and Brian’s marriage, Sara’s intransigence (saving Kate becomes her life’s goal, to the exclusion of everything, and everyone, else), Brian’s growing doubts about the paths they’ve chosen for Kate and Anna, and the ongoing neglect toward the fifth member of the Fitzgerald family, Jesse (Evan Ellingson), a sullen, introspective teenager. My Sister’s Keeper only returns to Anna’s case late in the film, after Cassavetes has wrung every emotion possible from Kate’s circumstances and Anna’s dilemma.
Both Kate and Anna are, unsurprisingly, sympathetic figures, but a third-act reveal (different, luckily, from the novel), serves to undercut the dilemma at the center of Anna’s case. But where Cassavetes gives Kate and Anna’s stories adequate screen time to explore their lives and complicated relationship as sisters, he gives far less time to Sara, Brian, and especially Jesse, who, despite getting his own voiceover introduction, barely gets any screen time and when he does, it’s to brood.
Structure and screen time aside, Cassavetes really erred by including the voiceover introductions and interior monologues. They’re filled with painfully obvious, banal observations from the character; they intermittently repeat or describe information we’re seeing visually, paradoxically creating an alienating barrier between the characters and the audience. Cassavetes should have either eliminated the voiceovers completely or focused only on Anna and Kate.
My Sister’s Keeper has one saving grace (well, almost). An actor himself (and, of course, the son of actor-writer-director John Cassavetes), Cassavetes elicits subtly modulated performances from his cast, which in turns helps to moderate the more melodramatic elements inherent in the source material. Sofia Vassilieva deserves special mention for infusing Kate with emotional depth and a keen awareness of her family’s complex feelings toward her illness. She convincingly conveys Kate’s changing emotional states and the tragic progression of her disease without resorting to histrionics (again, credit to Cassavetes). Acting, however, is only one aspect of filmmaking and here it’s not enough to elevate My Sister’s Keeper beyond the merely mediocre.
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