I Make Movie Review-MY Sisters Keeper

Tearjerkers generally fall in to one of two categories:
1. The Genuine Sobber-Wherein you've come to care about a group of characters so much that you, for a moment, share their wrenching pain.
2. The Tear-Yanker-Wherein, in lieu of actual characters and plot, the filmmakers throw sad situation after sad situation at you until your tear ducts have been sucked dry like so many cow utters.
"My Sister's Keeper", the sleek, tasteful, and occasionally underheated adaptation of the spectacular Jodi Picoult book of the same name, lies somewhere strangely in-between. The story is this: Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has cancer. So her mom and dad (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric), birth a "donor child", Anna (Abigail Breslin), made exclusively to provide her ailing big sis with surgically removed body parts. It works well enough, until Anna decides to hire a lawyer shes seen on TV (Alec Baldwin-always playing this kinda part these days) to sue her own mum and pop for the rights to her own body. Intriguing, eh? There's a premise for a damn good though-provoking, character-based thriller here. But director Nick Cassavetes (of "The Notebook" fame) pushes the legal drama out of the spotlight, focusing instead on the effects of childhood disease on a family. It's a good approach-taking a plot that flirts with gimmickry and making it personable. But occasionally, so much time is spend on lengthy, often repetitive scenes of relapse and recovery that we actually forget about the legal case--which, seeing as its the central plot point, isn't good. Throw in a lop-sided multiple-narrators at one time techique, and It's not surprising that the film sometimes comes across as meandering and self-important. In the midst of the action however, the story-and the movie-plays its trump card as Anna falls in love with a fellow cancer patient, Taylor (Thomas Dekker). It is here, where movies like this normally derail, that Cassavetes and his actors succeed in a big way. The romance is genuine-laced with the exaggerated emotions and warped thoughts that puppy loves inspires. It's a golden 30 minutes of movie storytelling, and the two actors sell the hell out of it, right up until it's inevitable coda that hits you even harder than you might think-and produces real, deep tears. Other scenes make a truthful connection, too-Diaz's vanity-free bitch-fit when Brian breaks Anna out of the hospital, the shocking (albeit different from the book) revelation at the trial, which hits particularly hard thanks to insightful work from the talented-beyond-her-years Breslin. Sure, there are screw-ups aplenty-the mama-slaps-daughter scene that's typical in these kind of movies doesn't work any better than it normally does, and a sunset-flaked trip to the beach-complete with slow jazz and home-movie style shots-goes way, way overboard. Cassavetes also gives Baldwin the shaft in terms of screen-time or characterization, and shoots the opening scenes in a fade-in, fade-out style that is as frustrating as it is ineffective. But it's a summer movie with A-grade performances, an actual story, and several scenes that cut deep. Take that, John DIllinger. B