My Sister's Keeper (movie)

Bibliography:Furst, S. (Producer) & Cassavetes, N. (Director) My Sister's Keeper[Motion picture]. United States: New Line Cinema.

Genre:movie

Reading Level/Interest Age:14+yrs

Reader's Annotation:Anna Fitzgerald is fighting for the right to control her own body, even if it means that her sister might die and her family might break apart.

Author:

Plot Summary:Anna Fitzgerald is eleven years old. Her older sister Kate is dying from leukemia. Their parents intentionally had Anna so that she could donate blood, tissues, and organs to Kate. When the story opens, Anna (with the help of her older brother Jesse) is suing her parents for medical emancipation: the right to her own body. Mrs. Fitzgerald is furious with Anna and brings the case to court. Anna’s father takes a passive stand and watches what happens. During all of this, the main plot, the film moves among narrators and often switches to flashbacks of Anna’s memories. We see through those flashbacks some of the happier moments of the Fitzgerald family (before Kate got sick), but we also see some of the harder memories (Kate’s hospital visits, heartbreaks, suicide attempts). These memories show that there is much more at stake for Anna than donating a kidney to her sister. As the trial moves ahead and Kate’s condition diminishes, we see the bond among the Fitzgeralds become stronger than it ever has been before.

Critical Evaluation:The movie opened up with a brief introduction to each character, which provided his or her point of view. While this could be successful in a novel, it seemed odd in the movie. It was hard to tell whose story was the primary one. The short segments did not provide an overall picture of what was going on. After that, the story mostly follows Anna and Kate. The flashbacks effectively represented the relationship between the two of them. The character of the older brother Jesse is oddly minimal. I would have liked to know him better; he seemed interesting. Predictably, the relationship between Anna and Kate’s parents became strained with Kate’s illness. Mrs. Fitzgerald takes it especially hard, and Cameron Diaz and the directors did a good job showing her own mental regression. Overall, this film was average. It was obvious that there is more to the story (from the novel), especially for some of the characters that were given short shrift in the movie. I think that teenage girls would like this film; it is emotional and tear-wrenching. That audience (age 14-17?) could identify with both Kate and Anna, and that is where the main appeal of the story fits in. We understand and sympathize with Anna, even though she has such a difficult decision to make.

Curriculum Ties:medical ethics, or following the reading of the novel

Book Talk Ideas:N/A

Challenge Issues:teen sexuality, language, medical trauma, inter-family fighting

Why was this text included in this project?This film was included because of the popularity of the novel and the movie.