High marks to the sharp movie exec who thought to program a weepy, issues-driven family drama against the testosterone-fuelled, high-octane mayhem of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Truly, if there was one movie this summer that is the complete and utter opposite of the movie about giant robots fighting, it’s a drama about a cancer ridden teen and the sister genetically created to save her life. My Sister’s Keeper tries to have things both ways, with a heavy, emotional family drama on one side and a hot-button pushing issues-related court drama. It doesn’t completely succeed at either one, but for the audience at large won’t be left with a single, dry eye, just as the filmmakers intended.

The film is about the trials and tribulations of the Fitzgerald family. Teenage Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) has leukemia, and her parents, particularly her mother Sara (Cameron Diaz), have dedicated their lives to her around the clock care. The younger sister, Anna (Abigail Breslin), was genetically-modified to be an exact donor match to Kate, and has been harvested for transplant material since pretty much the day she was born. But with Kate now needing a kidney, Anna decides to take her parents to court to sue for her medical rights and the right to decide what to do with her own body. She goes to a lawyer (played by Alec Baldwin), well known for his 91 per cent success rate and TV ads to take her parents to court.

The predictable story leans heavily on its actors to sell the schmaltz and the sentiment and by and large it succeeds. Adding some bits of levity is Alec Baldwin in the role of attorney Campbell Alexander, whose typical American huckster lawyer image hides the fact that he’s a pretty competent attorney with a medical problem of his own. That little reveal felt a little squeezed in by the way, like one of those little asides meant to only please those who read the book, which in this case was written by best-selling author Jodi Picoult. Another performance I liked was Joan Cusack as the trial judge, who brought a very haunted tone that was a nice balance of the movie varying emotional state. Cameron Diaz, meanwhile, gets to stretch her acting muscles, but shows a bit of atrophy in the process by overplaying some scenes and underplaying others.

Overall, the film is structured well and doesn’t feel overwrought or stretched for maximum tear-inducing melodrama. It’s manipulative however with its personal voice over narration and crafted scenes of Kate looking with cheer and love at a scrapbook she’s made of her life for her mother. Of course you’d have to be a stone not to feel something, but director Nick Cassevetes, as evidenced by the plethora of swoons induced by The Notebook, knows how to play a room. Still, despite this well-made and occasionally well-acted effort, My Sister’s Keeper is utterly predictable, ending on a bittersweet note that re-enforces the value of life, even in the face of a deathly sick child. From what I understand, the film’s ending is different from the book and it’s not a change for the better, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, formula wins out, especially when the potential was there to make this film much more provocative.