DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE

I read the book, My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult when it first came out.  As a fan of Picoult, I always looked forward to her books and read them in hardcover.  But that book made me change my mind, and she went from a favorite author to not so much someone I was even interested in reading.  I even waited for her last book to reach my kindle.

It's not that I don't like her formula (semi-unusual setting, law suit, medical problem) it's just that somewhere along the line she started pushing it.  Taking unbelievable stories and one-upping them so that she may as well be in the science fiction genre for how realistic they are.  What I am saying is that her endings suck.

So, apparently without keeping all of this in mind, I talked my sister into going to see the movie?  Why?  And more importantly, why did I not take a box of Kleenex?

Now, I love movies, I love books, I love stories ... and I am pretty generous with my praise.  I will even give all a benefit of the doubt and understand that some people might like it more than me, or whatever.

DO NOT GO TO SEE THIS MOVIE.

There is absolutely NO REASON to go see this movie, unless of course you feel like sobbing and having a throbbing headache for the rest of the day after watching it.  It totally and completely sucked.  It did not follow the book at all, and because the book had more character development in it, it was not necessarily a book about a girl dying of cancer.  That is ALL the movie was about, and seriously, why would anyone want to subject themselves to that?

DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

It was exhausting.  And it didn't make a lot of sense.  And neither did the book.  The entire project should have been scrapped!  The book, the movie, the whole deal -- shouldn't have happened.

Now, my sister and I could certainly relate to many aspects of the movie, because we've lived the leukemia scene; we've been in the hospital (certainly she waaaaaaaaaay more than me, but it is an illness that without any doubt touches everyone) and we've watched a little girl suffer.  So from that perspective, it certainly was no fun to be reminded of any of that.  But even beyond that, it was just a bad movie.  Like any movie adapted from a book, unless you've read it there are things that don't make a lot of sense.  Like when the lawyer starts having an epileptic fit.  No discussion of it, just bummer man.  Later, after the movie I flipped through the book and realized that the only reason that the lawyer had taken on the case of medical emancipation for the little girl was because he too had felt that he had no control.

Well, gee, kind of a big deal, but not worth mentioning in the movie!  

DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

I could go on and on, but I won't.  I have never disliked a movie as much as this one.  Ever.  We were crying within five seconds of watching it -- because that was all it was going for.  The cheap cry.  The few parts that were somewhat happy were always erased by returning to the dying present -- because that is how the movie worked.  Flashbacks of events, and always returning to the hospital, the inevitable death.

BLECH!

DO NOT GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

Seriously.  Not even to see if I am serious!!!