Grimerlana Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

aarongrierson-79741 *WARNING - MASSIVE SPOILERS IN BOTH BOOK AND MOVIE AHEAD!!!*Well, we're watching this movie in school because we're talking about donor siblings. There were, give or take, 10 girls in my class, and I think all of them cried at some point. But I just sat there, mouth agape, wondering how this movie could be worse than "The Notebook".Its main problem is that it doesn't really follow the book at all. In the end of the book, Anna is involved in a car crash after winning her case and, while she is brain dead, her lawyer, turned attorney, makes an arrangement to give Kate her sister's kidney. Kate recovers but Anna dies. In the movie, Kate dies. There, that's it. Maybe they thought Anna's death in the book was too upsetting for the movie, and by all means I can understand that, but it's a core part of the book that Kate recovers. It would have given the movie a feel-good look, that cancer doesn't always equal a death sentence. Instead, they kill off Kate, and it doesn't feel right.Cameron Diaz isn't very convincing either. The movie seems much more interested in making you cry than giving a story that seems believable.All in all, this isn't the worst movie I have ever seen, but there are some very major flaws. I wouldn't recommend it if you're a big fan of the novel, because they botch it up here in the movie.

ritonobono Let's face it, some books are better not having film adaptations. This is no exception. The screenplay's a mess, the pacing is all over the place and the characters (apart from Kate and Anna) really aren't very likable. I mean I get it, the mother was supposed to be this die hard tenacious woman trying to save her daughter, but she comes off more as a maniac who is willing to kill everyone and everything to save her daughter, including the people around her. Cameron Diaz just doesn't convince me as the mother and what makes it worse is in the midst of being a maniac she tries to slip in quirky jokes that are flat as pancakes. As for the rest of the cast, I mean Abby Breslin is fine as Anna and is even right on the money with the part, but the script she's given is so bad that it squanders that talent. Sofia Vassilieva as well. She owns her part, but again the script kills her acting. The rest of the cast is just a range of big names from Alec Baldwin to Emily Deschanel to Joan Cusack to even E.G. Daily as nothing more than two dimensional characters who show up for a few scenes to pad out the movie. The film repeatedly switches between failed comedy and heavy handed emotionally manipulative scenes. Seriously, are you trying to make us laugh or cry?So I'd say avoid this. It rings hollow and most of the movie feels like filler. Like I said, there are lots of movies that do well coming off of books, but this isn't one of them.

sachisamster I remember feeling in a similar way when I finished watching A Walk to Remember. The whole picture of death leaves us in tears and with the question of why did she have to die? Can people find any meaning to death? is it the end of existence? Anna ends saying that she hopes she will meet her sister again, is their another paradigm of existence after death? Is their anything wrong with the stand the mom took for her daughters protection? Do you feel that Kate should have fought more? What is the whole purpose of living? We are going to die someday. Is the quality of life measured by how long we live? Movies like this and Slumdog Millionaire makes me wonder if we end up with an emotional high and just forget about the fact that these things really happen. Does a portion of the profit gained by this movie go to treat cancer patients? The movie is based on a book by Jodi Picoult which ends differently..When Anna gets her emancipation she dies in a car crash and kidneys are anyway given away to Kate. I'm wondering why the story line was changed and Kate had to die. What if Anna didn't die of a car crash but died in the Kidney transplant operation. Maybe its too much of a tale to believe that she sacrificed her self for her sister. Sacrifice seems as something very unusual and makes us wonder why? Maybe because we don't how to respond to such love. What if someone underwent a punishment that we were supposed to go through or someone was wrongly accused and killed when I was the real culprit. How do we respond?

meerkatchris An incredibly overrated film that I cannot see as anything but a complete mess that relies on nothing but a hard-hitting topic, in which's only existence is to produce tears. The cinematography is bland and ugly (I did not like the overuse of the soft golden lighting). The acting is often questionable, as is the scripting. Not to mention the absolute mess of a narrative that jumps all over the place constantly in a failed attempt to be arty, but doesn't have any effect other than confusing the plot. Characters are dull and have barely any actual realism to them; the same goes for the characters' relations and interactions with one another (Kate and her "boyfriend" come across as cheesy, unlikeable and totally forced; only distracting us further from the main story). I'm sorry, but the film is like a comedy that tries time and time again to make its audience laugh, but only succeeds once or twice towards the end (making a film and repeatedly trying to make it sad straight off from the moment it begins isn't making a good film - it's just like a first draft script where the producers were like "What would be a good, hard hitting scene?" and adding all of them into the first hour-or-so without making them actually work by working on making the actual characters feel real and likable). It's just not a well made film at all.Although I didn't mind the Saul Goodman-like lawyer too much :pOverall rating: 1.8/10 (...I gave the Nic Cage Wicker Man a higher rating...).