My Sister's Keeper (2 Stars)

Old joke: Boy goes to pick up his prom date. Girl's father asks him: Are your intentions toward my daughter honorable or dishonorable? Boy says, "Great! I didn't know I had a choice!"

Movies are like that, too: They can choose to work us over honorably, or dishonorably.

This brings us to a well-acted phony such as "My Sister's Keeper." I'm sure its emotional intentions were honorable. But the harder this assault weapon went at my tear ducts, the more duct tape I wrapped around them as a defensive measure.

Director and co-writer Nick Cassavetes changes a good deal of the particulars of Jodi Picoult's 2004 novel, especially near the end, but the basics remain the same, right down to the voice-over chores shared by all the major characters. (This film's practically its own book-on-tape edition.)

Cancer never looked more noble, nor so morally improving.

The daughter of an ex-lawyer (Cameron Diaz) and a firefighter (Jason Patric), Anna (Abigail Breslin, serenely on top of every situation) was a test-tube baby conceived to provide bone marrow and umbilical blood to her older sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who has acute promyelocytic leukemia.

The years have been hard, emotionally and medically, on both girls.

Anna hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue her parents for "medical emancipation," and while you'd think a little thing like inter-family legal action would put a stop to all the gorgeous, lovey-dovey montages of everybody cherishing every minute together, well, think again.

Everything is a little too fabulously fabulous in "My Sister's Keeper."

When the backyard bubble-blowing montage comes, it comes with enough bubbles for 10 seasons of "The Lawrence Welk Show."

When Kate assembles a scrapbook of all the things she holds dear, it's such a professional-grade, ostentatiously amazing scrapbook, it actually makes her less sympathetic. And this is a cancer patient we're talking about.

Precious little about "My Sister's Keeper" feels like life on planet Earth, even life being lived in an extreme dramatic situation.

Cassavetes directed "The Notebook," which accommodated his gauzy Hallmark romanticism better. (He also made the tougher, underrated "Alpha Dog.") But the mood swings are insane here, and the look is bogus: Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel makes sure that even the hospital waiting rooms are mouthwatering.

As written by Cassavetes and co-screenwriter Jeremy Leven, the mother is a monomaniacal Mother Bear, willing to do anything to save her cub.

Diaz struggles to humanize her.

Others transcend the suds: Vassilieva is often quite moving. So is Joan Cusack, as the judge presiding over the court case. (The character was male in the novel.) Baldwin's masterly underplaying is most welcome. You may cry at the film's designated crying times, approximately every 10 minutes, like the traffic and weather. Or you may not, and wonder instead why some high-gloss weepies treat their source material quite so shamelessly.

My Sister's Keeper MPAA rating: PG-13 (for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language, and brief teen smoking).

Running time: 1:48.

Starring: Cameron Diaz (Sara); Abigail Breslin (Anna); Alec Baldwin (Campbell); Jason Patric (Brian); Sofia Vassilieva (Kate); Evan Ellingson (Jesse); Joan Cusack (Judge De Salvo).

Directed by Nick Cassavetes; written by Jeremy Leven and Cassavetes, based on the novel by Jodi Picoult;

Produced by Mark Johnson, Chuck Pacheco and Scott L. Goldman.

A New Line Cinema release.

ENTERTAINMENT

BOOKS | TELEVISION | MUSIC | THE ARTS | MOVIES | CULTURE

My Sister's Keeper Movie Review - Cameron Diaz & Abigail Breslin

© Tribune Media Services