Cameron Diaz matures into matriarch role 'My Sister's Keeper' provides new challenges
By LESLIE VAN BUSKIRK
Precisely 15 years after she startled filmgoers with her acting debut as a leggy, fresh-faced ingenue in the blockbuster "The Mask," Cameron Diaz is once again shaking up movie audiences. This month, for the first time in her admirably eclectic career, she's playing a fierce mother of three in "My Sister's Keeper," Nick Cassavetes' adaptation of the Jodi Picoult three-hanky bestseller.
That she hardly seems old enough (the actress will turn 37 later this summer) to have teenagers is part of the jolt, but it's the fact that Diaz is headlining a mainstream family drama that might seem out of character.
"On paper, it might seem like a stretch to cast her as a mom," acknowledges Cassavetes. "But I've known her for years, and this is how I see her.
"Here's the thing," he adds, addressing the actress's penchant for defying expectations. "Cameron's got that 'joie de vivre' -- I can't believe I just used those words, but they suit her -- and people love her for it, but sometimes in Hollywood there's resistance to seeing someone in a different light.
"It happens to everyone, not just actresses. Remember Tom Hanks' early career? He was seen as the guy from 'Bachelor Party' or even 'Joe Versus the Volcano.' It took a long time to get to 'Philadelphia.' And Cameron can do other things, more substantial things. She has the skill, and once you have that, you own it forever."
Most admired for her romantic-comedy chops, Diaz has actually been adding dramas to the mix all along. "I've always sprinkled them in there -- I do a comedy, I do a couple of dramas, another comedy," she says. "I like to keep things mixed up. I did 'What Happens in Vegas' last year, but before that I did 'The Holiday' and 'In Her Shoes,' and before that I did another 'Charlie's Angels' and before that "Gangs of New York.'"
The actress is sanguine enough to realize that "dramas aren't the big moneymakers that put you out in front of people."
It's a lesson she learned early on. Immediately following "The Mask," Diaz appeared in a series of indie dramas (such as "Feeling Minnesota"), which, while they allowed Diaz to hone her newfound acting skills, flew under the radar. 1997's "My Best Friend's Wedding" changed all that.
Deftly holding her own against the star power of Julia Roberts, the actress suddenly emerged as a serious contender for a seat on the romantic comedy throne and sealed her image as a sunny, smiling but slightly edgy bombshell.
Still, for every movie that highlights her sex appeal, effervescent personality and even her ability to shake it (it's true -- she dances in a majority of her films), Diaz seems intent on throwing a curveball into the mix, box office be damned. Case in point: Long before the current semi-revival of musicals, she sang and danced in Danny Boyle's odd 1997 misfire "A Life Less Ordinary."
She also is the only leading lady of her generation who appears almost pathological in her quest to recede from centerstage, more often than not appearing as part of an ensemble ("The Sweetest Thing," "The Holiday" or even the "Charlie's Angels" series).
"That's definitely true, and she's very much a team player, very democratic on the set," says "My Sister's Keeper" producer Mark Johnson. "And I admire that. I think that the beauty of why Cameron is doing the movies and the roles she's doing is that she really is following her own path -- she's doing what makes sense for her, she's not 'plotting' a career. And in that sense, she's quite adventuresome!"
Cassavetes is hoping to put that part of Diaz's psyche on display again in his next project, "Peaceable Kingdom," about real-life animal conservationist Daphne Sheldrick and her quest to prevent elephant extinction in Kenya. As he notes, "Cameron's concern and interest in the environment is not b.s. -- she is absolutely serious about it. She walks it like she talks it."
As for the lady herself, is there a preference for garnering laughs or tears onscreen? "It's not like I'm going, 'Oh my God, I wish I were making a comedy' when I'm making a drama," she says. "I just appreciate being there. Whether it's successful or not at the box office, for me it's always a success because I learn so much that I get to take with me in life. It's the best job in the world!"
Anna Stewart contributed to this report.
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
Originally posted by caresa: Could this role finally be the vehicle that could make Cameron Diaz a serious contender for Best Actress?
Maybe, maybe not... I think Sofia Vassilieva has a much much greater chance at getting a BSA nod though...
2010 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer Lead Actress - Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire Original Screenplay - Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Posts: 4923 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
I highly doubt Diaz will be any kind of contender. I even had a couple problems with her performance judging on the trailer alone (the scene where Patric and her fight over taking the daughter to the beach seemed ridiculously over-the-top). I doubt this will be any kind of factor.
Grammy FYC: Kanye West, 808s & Heartbreak; Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D.; John Legend, Evolver; Paolo Nutini, Sunny Side Up; David Guetta, One Love; Kelly Clarkson, "Already Gone"; Jordin Sparks, "Battlefield"; Kings Of Leon, "Use Somebody"; Maxwell, "Pretty Wings"
Originally posted by caresa: Well, I'm just astonished at the strong reaction against this film. I haven't seen it yet but I'm anxiously waiting for its release.
I guess for me, as a cancer survivor, I can personally relate to its storyline.
But I guess I'll have to wait to watch it to gauge whether Cameron Diaz is deserving of any Best Actress recognition for this role.
Congratulations on being a cancer survivor.
Posts: 3790 | Location: Earth | Registered: April 11, 2005
Originally posted by caresa: Well, I'm just astonished at the strong reaction against this film. I haven't seen it yet but I'm anxiously waiting for its release.
I guess for me, as a cancer survivor, I can personally relate to its storyline.
But I guess I'll have to wait to watch it to gauge whether Cameron Diaz is deserving of any Best Actress recognition for this role.
Congratulations on being a cancer survivor.
Yes, congratulations.
Right now judging by the trailers though, I feel the similar to MissyGal and babypook. Well I don't quite despise it, but I do admit that it looks pretty saccharine, and very Lifetimesque. Not that's necessarily a bad thing all the time because obviously there's a market out there for those type of movies, and it's not like I'm a snob who would never dream of watching anything on that channel. I just wouldn't feel the need right now to pay a 8.00 or more to see it in a movie theater unless I heard phenomenal things about it even then this feels more like a renter or most likely if I happen to catch it on cable when there's nothing else on I'll watch it.
I Don't think Cameron Diaz will be nominated for Best Actress, but if the reviews are good and my predictions are right, she will get a nomination for Best Supporting Actress
FYC: Oscars 2010 Best Picture: Nine Best Director: Rob Marshall, Nine Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Best Supporting Actor: Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire
Posts: 136 | Location: Stalkerazzi | Registered: January 02, 2009
Posted: Sun., Jun. 21, 2009, 4:00pm PT New U.S. Release My Sister's Keeper By JUSTIN CHANG
A Warner Bros. release of a New Line Cinema presentation of a Mark Johnson/Curmudgeon/Scott L. Goldman production. Produced by Johnson, Chuck Pacheco, Goldman. Executive producers, Toby Emmerich, MeridethCQ Finn, Mark Kaufman, Diana Pokorny, Stephen Furst, Mendel Tropper. Co-producers, Hillary Sherman, Steven Posen. Directed by Nick Cassavetes. Screenplay, Jeremy Leven, Cassavetes, based on the novel by Jodi Picoult.
Sara Fitzgerald - Cameron Diaz Anna Fitzgerald - Abigail Breslin Campbell Alexander - Alec Baldwin Brian Fitzgerald - Jason Patric Kate Fitzgerald - Sofia Vassilieva Aunt Kelly - Heather Wahlquist Judge De Salvo - Joan Cusack Taylor Ambrose - Thomas Dekker Jesse Fitzgerald - Evan Ellingson Dr. Chance - David Thornton
There's crying and vomiting aplenty in "My Sister's Keeper," and audiences may be forgiven the urge to respond in kind. Unsubtle, uneven and undeniably effective, this take-no-prisoners cancer weepie poses a fascinating moral quandary -- a girl fighting her parents for the right to control her body while her older sister wastes away from leukemia -- as a mere pretext for a full-scale assault on the viewer's tear ducts. To the extent that many will deem the assault highly successful, Warner's "Keeper" could be a sleeper, especially as a femme-friendly alternative to the latest "Transformers."
Adapted from Jodi Picoult's 2004 bestseller, "My Sister's Keeper" is the saga of the long-suffering Fitzgerald family, pivoting on a crucial moment in the lives of two sisters: teenage Kate, who was diagnosed with leukemia at an early age and has been in and out of hospitals ever since, and 11-year-old Anna, who was conceived in vitro as a perfect genetic match for Kate -- a living repository of blood, bone marrow and other bodily resources.
So when Anna marches into a lawyer's office and announces her decision to sue for "medical emancipation" -- which would free her from her obligation to donate the kidney that could save Kate's life -- their parents feel understandably shocked and betrayed. Their dad, Brian (Jason Patric), takes the news better than mom Sara (Cameron Diaz), who is fiercely and overbearingly devoted to Kate's welfare, often to the neglect of her husband, younger daughter and son Jesse (Evan Ellingson).
Writer-director Nick Cassavetes and co-scribe Jeremy Leven retain Picoult's technique of narrating the story from multiple points of view, interwoven with flashbacks that trace Kate's declining health and its impact on the family at every stage. While the device feels arch and clunky in its attempt to accommodate the perspectives of five characters, giving short shrift to some (the script regards Jesse with scarcely more interest than Sara does), it does reinforce the idea of the family as a fragmented unit, whose members find themselves at odds in matters of life and death.
Cassavetes was arguably well prepped for this film, having directed one crowdpleasing tearjerker ("The Notebook") and grappled with medical ethics, sort of, in "John Q." Yet the lack of tonal discipline evident in his past work is also present here, as the story's stew of family angst, terminal-illness melodrama and courtroom theatrics produces a dangerously unstable mixture of moods. Early scenes bog down in shrill bickering (mostly courtesy of Diaz, using Sara's brittle edges as an excuse to crank up the volume), chased into temporary remission by upbeat moments of family bonding.
Yet Cassavetes also is capable of a softer touch, which he demonstrates in a poignant, extended flashback to Kate's romance with a dreamy fellow patient (Thomas Dekker). As lovely images of the past insistently tug our attention away from the present, some of the drama's more pertinent questions -- what motivates Anna's sudden self-interest? What's it like to live with your parents when you're suing them? -- are casually glossed over. Too much scrutiny, it turns out, would spoil the climactic twist.
It's that calculated sense of dramatic evasion that makes "My Sister's Keeper" feel all too convenient as it short-circuits its own philosophical/scientific provocation and instead goes for the viewer's jugular. To that end, Cassavetes falls back on a reliable combo of heart-tugging music (either mood-setting pop tunes or Aaron Zigman's tastefully downbeat score) and repeated shots of a bald, feeble Kate beaming angelically through her tears. In the face of such an impeccably mounted emotional onslaught, what argument can there be?
That the film does come by some of its tears honestly is a testament to the actors involved, including Patric as the selfless, quietly resilient dad; Diaz, whose perf improves in direct relation to her character's mood; Baldwin, offering dry comic relief as Anna's attorney; and Joan Cusack, quietly wrenching as a judge who proves sympathetic to both parties. Special mention must also be made of Vassilieva, who endures the ravages of onscreen cancer (nosebleeds, deathly pale makeup, the aforementioned vomiting) like a champ, and who as a result easily steals the film from the plucky, always engaging Breslin.
Tech credits are pro but not too polished; there's a rough texture to Caleb Deschanel's lensing that suits the story's bittersweet feel. Pic makes fine use of its Southern California locations, particularly during a beachside interlude.
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
A solid positive review by The Hollywood Reporter:
Film Reviews My Sister's Keeper Film Review By Kirk Honeycutt, June 21, 2009 07:00 ET
Cast and CrewCast: Cameron Diaz (Actor), Diana Pokorny (Executive Producer), Mark Johnson (Producer), Abigail Breslin (Actor), Chuck Pacheco (Producer), Sofia Vassilieva (Actor), Scott Goldman (Producer), Jason Patric (Actor), Alec Baldwin (Actor), Stephen Furst (Co-producer), Nick Cassavetes (Director), Joan Cusack (Actor), Jeremy Leven (Screen Writer), Thomas Dekker (Actor), Caleb Deschanel (Director of Photography), Alan Heim (Editor), Diana Pokorny (Unit Prod. Manager), Michelle Morrissey (Prod. Manager), Jonathan McGarry (First Assistant Director), Jon Hutman (Prod. Designer), Maggie Martin (Set Decorator), Shay Cunliffe (Costume Designer), Meredith Humbracht (Prod. Coordinator), Steve Cantamessa (Sound mixer), Matthew Barry (Casting director), Nancy Green-Keyes (Casting director), Rachel Aberly (Unit Publicist)
Bottom Line: A thinking man and woman's weepy.
If you're going to make a weepy, there's no reason you can't make it with intelligence and insight as the makers of "My Sister's Keeper" have done. The audience manipulation -- if one wants to call it that -- comes from your understanding of these people and how this particular family operates in an atmosphere of love and mutual concern. The tragedy that forces its way into their midst is fought with tenacity, and the conflicts within the family are portrayed in such a manner that no one is a bad guy.
A film about a child with leukemia understandably has a small theatrical audience. Indeed, Jodi Picoult's novel, on which Jeremy Leven and director Nick Cassavetes' screenplay is based, might seem more at home on television, where illness, doctors and hospitals somehow feel less alarming. But "My Sister's Keeper" does benefit from a sagacious big-screen treatment: It allows for nuances and takes time to focus this story of an illness on all the people it affects.
The movie begins with a bit of misdirection when 11-year-old Anna (Abigail Breslin) sues her parents. It looks like you're headed into a fascinating legal drama dealing with a thorny ethical issue.
Anna has always known she is a "donor child." When her parents, Sara (Cameron Diaz) and Brian (Jason Patric), discover their first daughter, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), has leukemia, they choose to conceive another child through genetic engineering who would be a perfect genetic match with Kate. Thus, Anna can donate blood or whatever else is necessary to keep her elder sister alive.
The two girls love each other dearly, so Anna never complains. Then, 11 years into this routine, Kate's kidneys are failing and she'll need one of Anna's. Anna finally says no. She hires a big-shot lawyer (Alec Baldwin), whose face adorns billboards and buses all over Los Angeles, and goes to court seeking her "medical emancipation." But her mom, who gave up a law practice to care for her ailing daughter, will make a ferocious opponent.
The movie isn't about a court battle. The film moves back and forth in time to show how decisions were made and how this illness impacts everyone, including older brother Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who at times feels overlooked because of his sisters' relay team in body parts. The movie reflects back on the joys and sorrows of a family and how love can be just as strong whether the answer is yes ... or no.
The film takes time giving you the background on everyone, and that includes the judge (Joan Cusack) who will decide the issue and a fellow cancer patient (Thomas Dekker) who becomes Kate's love interest.
OK, maybe everything is a little too neat, too perfect. If you're going to be in a hospital, you would want David Thornton's Dr. Chance for your doctor. He's compassionate, honest, smart and -- this element veering into science fiction -- always available for consultation.
You would want your mom to be running over everyone else's feelings in fighting for your life. You'd want a dad who continues to do his job -- as a fireman, no less! -- even though the illness marginalizes him within his own family. You'd want a brother and sister this loving, but would that ever happen?
The ugliness of the illness also is not depicted in detail. Even the vomiting is mostly offscreen. And the ending is dragged out unnecessarily. It is the one occasion where you might legitimately complain about manipulation.
Nevertheless, the actors work with a beguiling earnestness. Diaz goes without any discernible makeup and even shaves her head at one point (so her daughter won't feel "ugly" following chemotherapy.) All the work pays off: This family feels like a family and not an ensemble thrown together in the casting process. When they gather around Kate's hospital bed, the whole things seems very real. Thus, the tears.
Opens: Friday, June 26 (Warner Bros.)
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
Review: 'Sister's Keeper' raises tough questions By CHRISTY LEMIRE AP Movie Critic
LOS ANGELES—"My Sister's Keeper" is a shameless weepy, one of the most manipulative and fundamental of genres, but it also raises some surprisingly difficult and thought-provoking ethical questions.
Based on the Jodi Picoult best-seller, the drama focuses on the Fitzgerald family, and the drastic decision they made in medically engineering a child (Abigail Breslin) as a perfect genetic match to help save the life of their older daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who has leukemia. Ordinarily, this sort of material would seem better suited for television, but there's an artfulness to the storytelling that makes it work on the big screen.
For years, little Anna provided blood, bone marrow, whatever Kate needed. She did it because she loved her sister, and because it's all she ever knew. Now at 11, with Kate needing a kidney, Anna says no for the first time—and beyond that, she files a lawsuit seeking medical emancipation from her parents to keep them from making further decisions about her body. (Alec Baldwin provides a few welcome flashes of comic relief as the dryly arrogant lawyer she chooses from his TV commercials.)
Director Nick Cassavetes, who co-wrote the script with Jeremy Leven (writer of Cassavetes' "The Notebook"), traces this conflict through flashbacks from various characters' perspectives: bulldog matriarch Sara (Cameron Diaz), whose priority is preserving Kate's life at all costs; father Brian (Jason Patric), who's patient and supportive no matter what; only son Jesse (Evan Ellingson), who feels lost in the shuffle; and Kate and Anna themselves. He probably relies a bit too heavily on voiceover from them all explaining the obvious: that they're a dysfunctional family but they still manage to stick by each other.
Cassavetes tugs at the heartstrings, which has become a trademark in much of his work, providing opportunities to yank out the hankies early and often. But he also wisely refrains from demonizing any of these characters for their choices and lets us draw our own conclusions.
Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel helps bring a gauzy melancholy to these heavy proceedings, especially during a pivotal scene at the beach toward the end.
On the flip side, some family members seem too good to be true—especially Brian, who happens to have chosen that most selfless of careers as a firefighter, and the saintly Kate herself, who loses it far less frequently than the average person might in her situation.
Diaz gives a vanity-free performance as Sara, a lawyer who stopped practicing to care for Kate full time, but her anxiety too often comes out as shrillness and she doesn't quite have the gravitas to make the courtroom scenes or the darker moments feel entirely believable. Breslin is typically bright and poised beyond her years, and here she gets a rare chance to play a character who could be viewed as cruel and selfish.
But she may actually get upstaged by the lovely Vassilieva, especially during the scenes in which Kate recalls the thrill of her first love with a fellow cancer patient (Thomas Dekker). This provides yet another chance to get choked up, because for all the beauty and authenticity of their young romance, you know it can't last.
"My Sister's Keeper," a New Line Cinema release, is rated PG-13 for mature thematic content, some disturbing images, sensuality, language and brief teen drinking. Running time: 103 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
I know Jodi Picoult and am friends with her two sons. Her youngest was in a singing group with me and we often rehearsed at their house. The 'private' premiere for My Sister's Keeper was held the other day at the town cinema and many of my friends attended.
I won't see this, however - it looks T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E.
"Notorious was nice, but it’s not in the color purple range" "Angels and Demons may get nominated for cinematography the imagery was profound" "District Nine will definitely win for best foreign film it made money and everyone loved it" ~ 8movies
Posts: 2714 | Location: nz | Registered: January 12, 2009
I know Jodi Picoult and am friends with her two sons. Her youngest was in a singing group with me and we often rehearsed at their house. The 'private' premiere for My Sister's Keeper was held the other day at the town cinema and many of my friends attended.
I won't see this, however - it looks T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E.
Lovely... Way to kinda brag and then like throw a pie in their face. I'm just pullin your leg... I don't think it looks that terrible, but if I were you, I think I would have gone just for the heck of it. VIP bragging rights...
2010 Oscars FYC:
Lead Actor - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer Lead Actress - Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia Supporting Actor - Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds Supporting Actress - Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire Original Screenplay - Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Posts: 4923 | Location: Why Do You Want To Know? | Registered: November 21, 2006
I know Jodi Picoult and am friends with her two sons. Her youngest was in a singing group with me and we often rehearsed at their house. The 'private' premiere for My Sister's Keeper was held the other day at the town cinema and many of my friends attended.
I won't see this, however - it looks T-E-R-R-I-B-L-E.
I'd rather bathe in excrement and drink a cup of spit, than see this, EVER. And, I'm speaking from years of experience as well.
Posts: 13909 | Location: canada | Registered: December 22, 2005
Diaz is getting great reviews and in a perfect world she would be a contender for Best Leading Actress nom, but Academy despise her so she won't get in. I'm sure if the role would be played by Cate Blanchett and got the same reviews as Ms. Diaz she would be a freakin' front-runner. Oh, well... double standards.
Originally posted by Scout: Diaz is getting great reviews and in a perfect world she would be a contender for Best Leading Actress nom, but Academy despise her so she won't get in. I'm sure if the role would be played by Cate Blanchett and got the same reviews as Ms. Diaz she would be a freakin' front-runner. Oh, well... double standards.
The same reviews?
True, I'm only going by the three that are posted here, but she's not getting such great reviews. Two of them had negative things to say, and the third was good only in passing. According to those reviews, she doesn't deserve a nom and that wouldn't surprise me any.
I'm just pullin your leg... I don't think it looks that terrible, but if I were you, I think I would have gone just for the heck of it. VIP bragging rights... 
