Recently arriving on Blu-ray just in time to tug at your heart strings for the holidays is My Sister’s Keeper. Directed by Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, John Q) and with solid performances by Abigail Breslin and Sofia Vassilieva, the movie is an intriguing, but sad tale of one family’s battle to stay together amidst a long fight with a rare form of cancer.
Keeper is based on the successful novel by Jodi Picoult and follows the Fitzgerald family, which is being torn apart by the eldest daughter’s lifelong struggle with a deadly form of leukemia. The youngest daughter Anna (Breslin) is conceived deliberately to be a genetic match and bone marrow donor for her sick sister. Years later, after many intrusive and painful donor operations, Anna decides to sue her parents (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) for medical emancipation to prevent herself from being her sister’s kidney donor.
With that intriguing premise, you’d expect that the film has the perfect setup to deeply explore the emotions and relationships of a family in this terrible predicament. However, it ventures too much towards a melodramatic tone, a deliberate attempt to make the source material a little bit more safe for the movies. A further distraction is the manner in which the narration shifts to different members of the family. This approach works for some of the characters, but not all of them. The film might have been better served with a strict focus on the interaction of Anna, Kate (the sick one) and Sara, the obsessive mother who just can’t seem to let go.
While Diaz, Breslin and Alec Baldwin headline, it is Vassilieva (NBC’s Medium) who anchors the film with her genuine portrayal of the sick Kate. In a family where everyone is seemingly about to fall apart at the seams, Kate is the only one that seems to be relatively at peace with her inevitable fate. And Vassilieva does an amazing job of bringing this difficult part to life. Diaz is somewhat convincing at the mother, a part written to be unlikeable.
With the Blu-ray release, viewers are getting the film in high-def as well as a digital copy for play on Macs and PCs. The film is presented in 1080p High Definition with a 2.4:1 aspect ratio and a 5.1 Digital Audio track.
Included are two special features. The behind-the-scenes featurette, “From Picoult to Screen,” is an introspective on the making of the film. Cast and crew chime in to elaborate on the creation of the film. Jodi Picoult also joins for some comments on her inspiration for the novel, its characters and the things she considered when writing it. Probably the biggest aspect of the film that should have been discussed more in detail is the drastic difference between the book’s end and the film’s end. The film takes an entirely different direction, which doesn’t sit well with most people I know that have read the book and seen the movie.
The only other included special feature is a 15 minute set of additional scenes (some deleted, some alternates to what made the final cut). Those scenes are only provided in standard definition, an obvious direct port from the DVD version of the movie.
Overall, My Sister’s Keeper succeeds at taking its audience through a range of emotions with a novel story that is intriguing. It is best viewed with family, especially at this time of year.
Bonus Features:
- (HD) From Picoult to Screen: Documentary
- Deleted Scenes
- Digital Copy
Title: My Sister’s Keeper [Blu-ray]Directed by: Nick Cassavetes
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin, Alec Baldwin, Jason Patric, Sofia Vassilieva, Joan Cusack
Studio: Warner Home Video
Release Date: November 17, 2009
Rating: 6.5 / 10
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