Guest Blogger: Abbie Movie 2

My Sister’s Keeper, a movie based on the book by Jodie Picoult, was one of my favorite movies this year. My Sister’s Keeper is about parents going to great lengths to save their daughter who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was five years old. Great lengths may be an understatement as they actually have a child who is made genetically perfect in the lab to provide their ailing daughter with the bone marrow necessary for their daughter to stay alive. Anna Fitzgerald, played by Abigail Breslin, is the young sister that has been donating bone marrow to her sister Kate, played by Sofia Vassilieva. In the movie Anna seeks the professional help of a lawyer, played by Alex Baldwin, to emancipate herself from being the cure of her sister’s disease. The movie is about a family’s deep “undying” love for each other and to what extremes each family member will go to to save a loved one. The movie is also about the dysfunction suffered when a family member is dying and how each member of the family deals with this dysfunction. Many movies like this are easy to figure out. However, with this movie the true intent of the characters cannot be figured out until the end of the movie.
Abigail Brelin was the perfect actress to play Anna Fitzgerald. She appears more mature than her years and offers the wit necessary to address such a delicate topic. Cameron Diaz played the role of the mother. Before seeing the movie I couldn’t see her playing this part. However, after seeing the movie the part could not have been played by anybody as well. Cameron was perfect playing the frazzled mother who would stop at nothing to save her dying daughter. I felt that Cameron was the central character of the movie. Although dysfunctional, she was the glue that held the family together. Sofia Vassilieva had the heart and soul needed to play the part of the dying daughter. She was able to project acceptance and sadness at the same time. She was not sad for herself, she was sad for her family who she loved very much. The theme of the movie, love has no limits, was seen through the actions of each character. The critics were not very kind when reviewing this movie. Roger Ebert looked at the movie as being a debate about pro-choice vs. pro-life. Lisa Schwarzbaum, of Entertainment Weekly, poked fun at the beach scenes and music used to elicit a tear from the moviegoer. I disagree with any critic who gave this movie a bad review. Obviously they don’t know what an audience of teens is looking for in a movie. Teens today are so bombarded with electronics, cursing and violence. This was a movie about a good family who had to make some very difficult decisions that only a family in this situation could make. There were no electronics, no cursing, and no violence. Finally a movie worth seeing!