My Sister's Keeper

Nick Cassavetes adapted Jodi Picoult’s 2004 novel, and its ending became the most argued part. In the book the younger sister wins her case, is killed in a car crash on the way back from court, and her kidney goes to her sister; the film did not use that resolution. Picoult has since called the adaptation a bad experience and said plainly she objected to the change. The cast was assembled twice. Dakota and Elle Fanning were first attached as Kate and Anna; Dakota withdrew on learning the part required her head to be shaved, her sister left too, and Sofia Vassilieva and Abigail Breslin took the roles. A lawsuit gives the film its ground. Anna, eleven years old, sues for medical emancipation rather than give up a kidney, and the attorney Campbell Alexander takes it without a fee. That she was conceived through in vitro fertilisation as a tissue match is stated outright. Reviews were mixed while audiences leaving cinemas graded it A minus; critical and popular responses split sharply. A good fit if you want the courtroom used to force a family to say what it never says rather than to produce a winner. Not for you if you would rather not watch the hospital detail; chemotherapy, kidney failure and the labour of care sit at the centre.