Precious is a new-style weepie but one that is much more bracing than depressing
Precious
Theatre
Ian McKellen is captivating throughout. He delights in the play’s gallows humour, yet is also maudlin and poignant
Waiting for Godot
Theatre
Slight quibbles notwithstanding, this will set the West End’s stock riding high
Enron
Utterly, utterly brilliant. You really are in for a treat
Though 'Trilogy' has won rave reviews, I personally found myself exasperated after about an hour
We went on a quiet sunday evening and the food was excellent, but the experience let down by the service and ambiance
London,
Derek Malcolm's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Nick Cassavetes.
Cast: Alex Baldwin, Sofia Vassilieva, Evan Ellingson, Cameron Diaz, Jason Patric, Abigail Breslin, Joan Cusack
Description: Brian Fitzgerald and his wife Sara are blissfully happy with their son Jesse and two-year-old daughter Kate. Their lives change forever when they discover that Kate has leukaemia and the couple makes a controversial decision: to conceive another child, a genetic match, in order to save Kate's life. Sara gives up her job as a high-powered attorney to preside over the family and she watches in awe as youngest child Anna forms a close bond with Kate (Sofia Vassilieva). Visits to hospital for various procedures become a normal part of childhood until Anna reaches the age of 11 and announces that she no longer wants to be a guinea pig, hiring lawyer Campbell Alexander to plead her case.
Country: US. 2009. 109mins
Giveaway: Anna (Abigail Breslin) is used by her mother (Cameron Diaz) as a donor for her ill sister
Anyone in Hollywood who tries to make a movie about a young girl dying of cancer is on a hiding to nothing if they don’t expect a certain amount of compromise in telling an essentially tragic story.
But director Nick Cassavetes has one thing in his favour, and that is the popularity in America of Jodi Picoult’s controversial bestseller, on which his film is based.
The controversy concerns not the sick Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) but her younger sister Anna (Abigail Breslin), who was conceived by their parents to act as a compatible donor of the blood and bone marrow necessary keep Kate alive.
But when her parents insist she donates a kidney, Anna finally objects and a court case ensues.
Anna loves Kate but wants “medical emancipation”. The case divides the family, with her strong-willed mother (Cameron Diaz) fearing all her well-laid plans will go wrong.
It’s a good story and Cassavetes secures performances, particularly from Breslin and Vassilieva, that do it proud.
But the compromise comes in smoothing out the corners of the drama and providing an ending which, though sad, strives mightily to leave the audience feeling good.
However, instead of looking differently at “perceptions of family love and loyalty and finding a new meaning for the definition of healing”, as the publicity blurb has it, My Sister’s Keeper becomes a well-heeled weepie in which the family’s comfortable existence, despite the misfortunes of fate, is hardly challenged at all.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Some of the reviews miss the objective of this film...........
It only disappoints because of the the true meaning of the book on which it is based is not reflected in the film........
That is to except the hand your are dealt as you never know what is around the corner..
- Richard Legdon, Hereford
this was truly a very good movie and sad at the same time
- Mariah, high point , United States
WOW CAnt WAIT to SEE thiss
- Jamya Smith, st .thomas V.I
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