My Sister's Keeper

This was sitting on my to-see list, left over from Massachusetts, and so I had to track it down in Saco to see it. The Cinemagic was nice and air conditioned on a hot summer afternoon. It was nice to get out of the heat.

I was really, really sure I was going to hate My Sister's Keeper. No scratch that. What I meant is that I was sure that sitting through it was going to be a trial, although I might wind up liking it after I saw it.

As it happened, I was wrong again. Although ten minutes into it, I was squirming in my seat, I really settled in and wound up enjoying this movie a lot. It was a lot better than I expected.

It wasn't the fact that it stars Abigail Breslin that made me wary. I learned last year that she's actually a very good actress, and probably will be so for many years to come. I couldn't see any other actress her age pulling this movie off.

But the possibility of such cloying subject matter really seemed like a red flag. Breslin plays a little girl who was genetically conceived in order to supply body parts and tissues to her chronically ill older sister, who has leukemia. She winds up suing her parents to "gain custody over her own body." It seemed like a perfect mix for a sentimental nightmare of a movie.

But like I said, I was wrong. Much of this had to be the direction of Nick Cassavetes, who has the family talent for telling good stories about, well, families, by letting the camera do much of the work. And Breslin was very good again. Even Cameron Diaz was perfectly cast it seemed. And Alec Baldwin too. Overall, I was a bit ashamed of my wariness about this movie.

It was also much less sentimental than I feared. And there is a big plot twist at the end that makes the story "come out right," in narrative terms---a very good screenplay, co-written by Cassavetes and Jeremy Leven. But like I said, a lesser director could have made this movie utterly unwatchable, given the subject matter. Count me a Nick Cassavetes fan from here on out.