MY SISTER’S KEEPER
HEADLINE: ** Nihilistic Thoughts Without God **
Title: MY SISTER'S KEEPER
Quality: * * * Acceptability: -2
SUBTITLES: None
WARNING CODES:
Language: LL
Violence: V
Sex: S
Nudity: N
RATING: PG-13
RELEASE: June 26, 2009
TIME: 109 minutes
STARRING: Cameron Diaz, Sofia Vassilieva, Abigail Breslin, Jason Patric, Evan Ellingson, Alec Baldwin, Thomas Dekker, Joan Cusack, Heather Wahlquist, and David Thornton
DIRECTOR: Nick Cassavetes
PRODUCERS: Mark Johnson, Chuck Pacheca and Scott L. Goldman
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Diana Pokorny, Stephen Furst, Mendel Tropper, Toby Emmerich, Merideth Finn, and Mark Kaufman
WRITER: Nick Cassavetes and Jeremy Leven
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY: Jodi Picoult
DISTRIBUTOR: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Pictures/Time Warner
CONTENT: (HH, B, C, AbAb, LL, V, S, N, A, MM) Strong humanist worldview with a nihilistic tone of meaninglessness and a narrated statement (while the song "Amazing Grace" is playing during a funeral) that the death which occurred was ultimately meaningless, mitigated slightly by some positive scenes of strong family love and light references to Heaven and a guardian angel, but these references are not developed into anything truly inspiring or strongly Christian or biblical and are ultimately undercut by the depressing ending; 10 obscenities (including one or two "f" words), five strong profanities and six light profanities, plus very sick child vomits several times, including blood one time; some violence includes a couple intense arguments, implied suicide, attempted suicide with pills, and intense hospital procedures and sickness; implied sex between teenagers (who are shown lying in bed afterwards), passionate kissing between teenagers and microscopic shots of human reproductive objects and in vitro fertilization, plus male teenager hangs around on streets that seem to have prostitutes walking by or standing around, but no pickups are seen; upper male nudity and upper nudity of young girl child in hospital setting; alcohol use; no smoking; and, character says death is meaningless as "Amazing Grace" is played during funeral scene, lying, girl sues her parents for medical emancipation, and terminally ill patient does not want kidney transplant and further treatment for leukemia, but the issue is not fully resolved nor properly discussed in an enlightening, biblical manner.
GENRE: Drama
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Teenagers and adults
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SUMMARY: MY SISTER'S KEEPER is an ultimately depressing story about a family trying to cope with a situation where one of their daughters is suffering from a deadly strain of leukemia. Despite some positively touching scenes between the family members, the movie suffers from a nihilistic humanist tone that results in a depressing ending.
IN BRIEF:
MY SISTER'S KEEPER begins with 11-year-old Anna telling viewers how her parents, Sara and Brian Fitzgerald, conceived her in a test tube to save their daughter Kate's life. Kate's life depends on Anna, because Kate has leukemia. Sadly, despite a bone marrow transplant and other medical procedures from Anna, Kate's leukemia has gone out of remission. Also, her kidneys are failing. Anna goes to a lawyer to become "medically emancipated" from her parents, because Anna does not want to donate the kidney to Kate. Anna's decision causes a furor in the Fitzgerald household. The movie then uses flashbacks to show how the situation got to this point. As it brings viewers up to speed, the story shows what happens in the wake of Anna's decision to sue her parents.
Moviegoers will be greatly touched sometimes by this story. Despite Anna's lawsuit, MY SISTER'S KEEPER contains several positive scenes of family love and togetherness facing tragedy. Regrettably, a nihilistic tone, including one overt nihilistic statement, undercuts the movie's references to religion and its pro-family message. In the end, MY SISTER'S KEEPER is more depressing than inspiring, and its humanist ending is stifling.
