Book to Movie: My Sister's Keeper

First let me explain I don't usually go for this type of story normally. I hate the tear jerker make you cry in a corner type of book normally. I loved "My Sister's Keeper". It was well written and the characters made sense. They worked. Anna, the younger sister, had really good reasons outside of "I just don't want to do this anymore". She was into hockey and they were asking her to give up a vital organ, albeit one she had an extra of, but one that still is vital. One of the problems with that would be she could no longer be in contact sports, which rules out hockey, big time. All that lovely drama of "why are you trying to kill your sister" could easily be shoved onto "because it'll ruin my life!" Yes that is a bit selfish, but she is also a little girl. It is rare to be altruistic to fault at that age.



When I saw the movie in theaters I went by myself, I had to. Long story short on why is I was somewhere alone with nothing to do all day. I sat through the movie with a stack of napkins prepared. I cried and was so happy I was alone despite the funny stares from the couple of ladies sitting in front of me. There was even preemptive crying. I knew exactly what was going to happen next.

In the book the car Anna is in crashes, she dies, and her kidney is given to Kate. After that Kate doesn't have any more problems and lives on in her sister's memory. This is where I believe the title of the book really comes from. Kate is the keeper of the memory of her sister. The love the two share is beyond what you realize at the beginning.

Now in the movie Anna wins, as per the book, but Kate dies shortly after. Anna doesn't save her. I felt this was such a copout. I cried for Anna's death knowing it would bring new life to Kate, not just physically, but in her heart too and then the metaphorical rug was pulled out from underneath me and that was ruined.

The problem with changing the ending of a story in such way it ruins what the original story was trying to say. Instead of one meaningful ending Hollywood tried to stamp over it with their version. That isn't what the story was about. I for one believe that this change made what I felt the author wanted to say get lost. I may be wrong in my thinking, I am not the author nor have I met her and chatted with her about this story, but I didn't get the same reaction, the same moral if you will from the movie as I did the book.

 That said, there have been wonderful transfers of book to movie so I can't hate Hollywood completely...yet.