Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on October 2009

©MMIX New Line Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

One of my few redeeming qualities is that I can cry at movies. However, being a hardened cynic, I am perhaps more resistant than most to emotional button-pushing. This one had me blubbering like a baby. Eleven-year-old Anna (Abigail Breslin) was genetically engineered to serve as a spare-parts provider (not science fiction) for her leukemia-stricken older sister (Sofia Vassilieva), and has during her short life endured numerous painful blood and bone-marrow extractions to keep her sister alive. But she’s a bright kid, and when mom (Cameron Diaz) decrees that a kidney is next, Anna hires a lawyer (Alec Baldwin) and sues her parents for “medical emancipation.” This is just the film’s hook. What follows is an intelligent and insightful story that’s genuinely moving. Accepting or even talking about death is not something we do well, but writer/director Nick Cassavetes’ adaptation of Jodi Picoult’s bestseller is a low-key emotional knockout that adroitly avoids cliché. There’s not a bad performance in it (also Jason Patric, Evan Ellingson and a standout Joan Cusack). Sad though the story is, it’s also cathartic, and though you’ll leave the theater a few hankies lighter, you’ll feel uplifted rather than manipulated.