26 June 2009 1:29 PM, PDT | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »
Warner Bros.' My Sister's Keeper, directed by Nick Cassavetes, could very well prove to be a bigger contender against the Transformers sequel (the New York Post's Lou Lumenick calls it "sacrificial counter-programming") at this weekend's box office than many analysts had anticipated -- if word-of-mouth echoes the opinions of several of the major critics. The film has an intriguing premise: one child, we learn, was genetically designed to become a source of organs for her dying sister. When the younger one discovers the awful truth, she sues her parents. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, who gives the film 3 1/2 stars, calls the premise "an immediate audience-grabber." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal indicates that he, too, became intrigued when child actress Abigail Breslin announces in the prologue, "I'm a designer baby. I was made in a dish to be spare parts for Kate." And Roger Moore in the Orlando Sentinel suggests that it all results in "a horror movie for parents and a righteous weeper that earns its tears." Adds Bruce DeMara in the Toronto Star: "As wrenching as this film is, there is nary a false moment of contrivance or emotional manipulation." But Claudia Puig in USA Today says that the movie "takes a compelling ethical dilemma and turns it into formulaic pap." A.O. Scott in the New York Times says that the movie "takes on a very tough subject -- and has, in Anna and Kate, two pretty tough characters played by strong young actresses -- but ultimately it is too soft, too easy, and it dissolves like a tear-soaked tissue." And clearly Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle was left with dry tear ducts as he watched the film. "The movie is really about how awful it is that Kate is sick," he writes, "And you know what? It is awful, truly, horribly, painfully awful. But so is the movie." »
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