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RATING:  
As emotionally manipulative as weepies go, Nick Cassavetes's drama, based on a Jodi Picoult bestseller of the same name, touched me in a way I didn't anticipate.
My Sister's Keeper is an uncomfortable thought-provoking ethical dilemma that will have you alternating from being exasperated by its blatant manipulation via weepy music and contrived "happy" montages, to desperately wanting to care about the characters' physical and emotional survival.
Full credit, though, goes to the sincere performances by Sofia Vassilieva as a 15-year-old dying from leukaemia, and Abigal Breslin as her 11-year-old little sister, conceived in a petri-dish specifically to be a sibling donor.
Cameron Diaz is suitably believable as their headstrong mother, and Jason Patric as the stoic husband surprisingly anchors some of the film's most effective scenes with understated gravitas.
The performances make it that much easier for us to forgive the calculated tug-the-heartstrings tactics - all the while crying buckets into our popcorn.
- TODAY/yb
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