My Sisters Keeper and a Julie and Julia Follow-up

During Allison's visit this past weekend, we ended up renting a few movies on Sunday because she got horrifically sick. We rented My Sisters Keeper and Julie and Julia (in case you hadn't figured that out yet from the Blog Title) :-).

I REALLY wanted to see My Sisters Keeper because I was absolutely in love with the book. I finished it about 3 months ago but I read it in only a few days. Just could not put the book down it was so moving. I bawled when I finished the book and I gushed over it to anyone that would listen. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for a weekend that I could rent it and watch it where Terry was busy so that I wouldn't have to put him through having to watch it too (not his thing). Allison being sick was the perfect opportunity.

Now I'm not going to give a lot away about the movie for those of you who haven't seen it yet. The premise of the story is about a family's struggle with one of the children having acute promyelocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. There are three children; the oldest son Jesse, the middle daughter Kate (who is the one with cancer), and the youngest Anna. Anna was an engineered child, meaning she was genetically created to be a perfect match as a donor for Kate when they found out that Kate had Leukemia and Jesse was not a match. Since Anna was born, she has been giving her blood and her bone marrow to Kate. Kate's kidneys have started malfunctioning and the parents are wanting Anna to give one of her kidneys to Kate to keep her alive. The main development in the story comes when Anna hires a lawyer to claim medical emanicipation from her parents so that she can have control over her body and no longer be Kates donor. Each chapter in the book is from a different person in the family's perspective of the situation while still moving the timeline forward. It is a powerful book that pulls you in so many directions all while having you on the verge of tears through every flip of the page. Even though it is a fiction novel, it feels like it is a true story that could happen to anyone at anytime. My review of the book..... IF YOU ARE CAPABLE OF READING, BUY THIS BOOK!!!

Now onto my review of the movie.....If you have read the book (which you should be purchasing on Amazon.com right now if you have not), you will want to throw things at your TV at the end of the movie so make sure no heavy objects are in close proximity. I cursed a lot of the end of it, after I picked my jaw up off the floor. The ending in the book and the ending in the movie are complete opposites. But the thing that gets me is that the ending in the book is MADE for a movie. It adds so much complexity that it just makes no sense that they would even have the notion of changing it. It's the part of the book that I was most looking forward to seeing in the movie. I'm still bitter a bit, so sorry for the instantaneous rant.

As for the characters in the film, the casting director did a phenomenal job. I was a little skeptical of Cameron Diaz as the mother, but she did an excellent job in that role. Abigail Breslin was incredible as well in her role as Anna, but by far the best actor in the movie was the girl who played Kate, Sofia Vassilieva. I read up on her a little bit yesterday because I didn't know if she had been in anything else before this movie. In the article I read, she shaved her her bald as well as shaved her eyebrows off for the role as Kate and said it was the least she could do to come close to what Kate was going through in the movie.

After I had calmed down a bit after screaming at the TV and the writers and the producers and the novelist who allowed her book's ending to be changed (this took a little time), we watched Julie and Julia starring Amy Adams and Meryl Streep.

From my post a few weeks ago, I was completely accurate with my hypothesis that the movie would be better than the book. I absolutely loved it! I think that Amy Adams is one of my new favorite actresses. She is so captivating to watch, and all of her little quirks make me laugh. Meryl Streeps voice as Julia Child annoyed Allison, but I'd seen and heard Julia on cooking shows before, so I thought it was quite endearing. I got a lot of really good laughs in, and overall I would definitely recommend people to watch the movie over reading the book. I am, however, now going to read My Life in France, which chronicles Julia Childs time in Paris with Paul and going to La Cordon Bleu.