SAVE $18.98 - My Sister's Keeper $10.00
Price: $28.98 Now: $10.00 You save: $18.98
Grab a box of tissues and settle in for a heart-wrenching exploration of illness, morality, and familial bonds in this excellent screen adaptation of bestselling author Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. When parents Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian Fitzgerald (Jason Patric) find out that their daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has leukemia, they make the difficult choice to utilize the advancements of modern medicine and impregnate Sara with a child genetically ensured to be a donor match for Kate. Throughout the many years of dealing with Kate's illness, the needs of individual family members--including Kate's parents, her brother Jesse (Evan Ellingson), and her sister Anna (Abigail Breslin)--are largely ignored in light of Kate's more serious needs. Still, Kate's sister Anna rarely complains about helping Kate, even when it involves undergoing painful bone marrow aspirations. Recently, however, Anna has had a change of heart and has decided to stand up for her right to have a say in medical procedures involving herself: she's enlisted a lawyer, Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin), to help her sue her parents for medical emancipation. The issue is highly emotional and the familial strife is further compounded by the fact that Kate is quickly failing and needs an immediate kidney transplant for even a chance of continued survival. The emotional struggle of dealing with serious illness while trying to meet one's own needs permeates the film, as do the staggering moral dilemmas inherent in the advances of modern medicine. While Picoult's readers may be disappointed that the film doesn't delve as deeply into Anna's and Jesse's characters as the book does, My Sister's Keeper is nonetheless an intensely powerful film bursting with emotion and moral quandary that leaves viewers pondering what lengths they might go to in a similar situation. --Tami Horiuchi
Shop Now »»
Permalink: dealnay.com/144026
Last updated: November 9, 2009, 11:45 pm
My Sister's Keeper Customer reviews:
Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 14
(Amos Lassen, 2009-10-20) "A Woman in Berlin" A New German Classic Amos Lassen Max Farberbock's new film is destined to become a classic. It is wowing people in festivals and being hailed as a new German classic. Based on a true story and on a bestseller, it is indeed controversial. The film is set in 1945 when the Red Army invaded Berlin and German women became rape victims. There was devastation and hardship. One woman, Anonyma (Nina Hoss), a former journalist and photographer, is the victim of rape. As she struggles to survive, she looks for an officer that can offer her protection and she meets Andrej (Evgeny Sidikhin) and she develops a complex relationship with him and the two are forced to remain enemies until the very end. Rape was the fate of women during war and it has finally been regarded as a war crime. During World War II, German women had no protection. The film does not offer a right/wrong attitude but allows the audience to consider how war atrocities should be handled. Complex answers surround us when we consider the horrors of war. When the book upon the movie was published in 1959 in Switzerland, Germans were outrages and the author was not allowed to publish any future editions. Fifty years later the material in the book is just as powerful and incendiary as it was back then because it is about unspeakable events. The focus of the film is one a group of neighbors--two sisters, a widow, an elderly bookseller, a liquor dealer, a pair of lesbian partners, a refugee in hiding and an 80 year old and it is a bit difficult to keep track of what is going on at first. This is because of the chaos in Berlin and not the fault of the film. The Russians walk around and brutalize women and Anonyma sleeps with various Russians until she becomes involved with Anatol who comes and goes as he pleases. She goes through other Russian officers. The film takes a hard look at an issue that was repressed and gives us a complex look at a crazy period. It is well acted and directed. We see both decency and depravity and the film is at times brutal and grim and because it does not use sensationalism, it appears to be close to the truth.
(Avid Reader, 2009-11-02) I was enjoying this movie -- until I got to the ending. In the book, the ending was a stunner: surprising and very thought-provoking. I have no idea why they decided to alter the ending which, in my opinion, totally ruined the movie. Do yourself a favor and read the book instead.
(Demario Moore, 2009-10-29) No i have not read the book but even i could see that the ending was stupid. This is a good movie. The actors are all right on point. However, This is suppose to be a story about a little girl fighting for the rights to her own body. They made it into just another sad cancer movie. This kids parents basically had her so they could take certain body parts and give them to her dying sister. That's really messed up. Even though you understand why, it's still just plain wrong. We see this little girl fighting for a normal life. I was captivated by this story until the end. All of a sudden we find out she doesn't really care of they give her body parts to her sister. The entire time she was doing this because her sister was ready to die. This really screwed everything up. They had to have there neat little ending. I still think everyone should check this movie out. It's very emotional but the ending could have been better.
(buen chapin, 2009-09-26) Strange film, and at the same time, astonishing! I haven't read the book, but the movie is great. Definitely, not for everyone. This is one of those movies that make you think and reflect on issues of live an death. If you want a movie just for the sake of watching a movie, look elsewhere. There's No violence, no sex, no drugs, no killing sprees,no shootings, no terrorists, no bombs going off, no gore, no torn-out limbs, no cars crashing, etc, etc, etc. If this is what you are looking for, there's plenty of movies to choose from. This one is only for mature thinking people who comprehend psychological plots, end-of-live topics and the implications (and dangers) of screwing around with genes for "medical or therapeutical" purposes. It can be considered as a masterpiece on the bio-ethical implications of gene manipulation, and messing around with the natural order! If this is your kind of movie, I recommend also: "Mar Adentro", "Tuesdays with Morrie", "Wit" (although a tad boring), and "Godsend" I also recommend reading a book called "The private world of dying children" from Myra Bluebond-Langer. An excellent insight to how children percieve the end of their lives and all that goes around them from a bio-psycho-social and spiritual point of view. If you are a health care worker and especially working with kids with life threatening illnesses, this movie is a Must See. It is a well worth investment.
(Mohamed F. El-Hewie, 2009-08-15) Could the leukemic patient wait ten years until her sister was born and grew up in order to supply her sick sister with bone morrow? Could a physician ever dare to suggest such route of having birth with the intent to supply genetically matching organs (even if that was technically possible)? Those were the main reasons that undermined the convinciblity of the scenario. The residing judge was a great actor and played a convincing role. The same could be said on the desperate mother who could not let her dear daughter separate from life. The dad's role was also well done with the background of a humble and charismatic firefighter that rendered dad's role real. Another inconvenient glitch was the daughter who sought a lawyer and sued her own mother in order to end her abuse. That was unconvincing even if the community was so enlightening that it could educate a child of the role of the State on such matters. As for the two cancer patients indulging in sex that appeared far fetched. One assumes that a terminally sick patient would be more occupied with survival than productivity. The cold and dry role of the medical staff was bit of exaggeration as far as calculation of genetic manipulation and discharge of a not very sick patient. To the injury was added the dog "Judge". An attorney accompanied by a dog in a court trial and calling his dog "Judge" was excessive humor. When many pieces of the puzzle do not fit, the finger points to the manipulators of the story. The story appeared a cocktail of fiction of medicine and law that ran sour. Credit should be given to the artistic labor of coloring the skin of the leukemic patient to match the gravity of her condition.
(P. Fidler, 2009-08-12) 'My Sister's Keeper' is a sob fest plain and simple but it can drill down into something deep inside you. *Possible Spoilers* The main point of this movie as I see it is that no matter how old you are or what condition you are in YOU should be the GIANT decider in what happens to you. My father developed a rare form of agressive prostate cancer and died within seven months of starting chemo. It was the most painful thing I've seen but watching this movie made me thing of him because he was his own person. Kate wanted to make her own decisions. Yes she was a kid but SHE was the one with the fatal illness. SHE was the one that had to be sick. I was always firm with my father in telling him we stop when you want to. Kate used Anna to help get her point across. In my opinion the moral of the story is listen. Just stop and ask this person so important to you. what do you want? Kate was the simple hero but Anna was the bigger one in that she risked her parents hating her just to help her sister. She knew why she was created but she was still her sister's best friend. She would do anything for her and that was proven.