Just watched this yesterday at home. Quite a beautiful movie =)

I've actually read the novel (by Jodi Picoult) way, WAY back before the movie was made. It was the first novel of Jodi Picoult that I picked up, and ever since then she became one of my favourite authors. She definitely knows how to combine court drama, life, love, and difficult issues into one compelling and thought-provoking book. Go get her books and you'll know what I mean *wink*

The story is about Anna (played by Abigail Breslin), an 11-year-old girl who was conceived through scientific means because her parents need a perfect match donor to help with her elder sister's illnesses. Kate is terminally ill, and needs a lot of blood, granulocytes, etc etc to cope. The story begins with Anna approaching a famous lawyer (Alec Baldwin) to sue her parents for her rights to her own body, or as they call it in legal terms, medical emancipation. You see, she feels that she has not been asked whether if she WANTED to do all the donation, especially when it comes to her own organs. The story goes through the different eyes of the characters in the movie; from the mother (Cameron Diaz), father, brother and Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) and how they deal with this, including the effects of Kate's illness on the family.

Although this movie was based on the book, it was definitely altered to fit Hollywood's style...quite a big chunk of it was left out (especially the crucial court scenes, where I feel they kept the suspense and intensity in the book) and they altered quite a bit on the premise of the story. Don't want to give away too much, but once you've read the book and watched the movie, you'll get what I mean.

Abigail Breslin was brilliant as Anna. She portrayed Anna just about the way I imagined her to be, smart, witty and loves her family so much it ached. Sofia Vassilieva was great as well...I really admire her courage to play a very sick girl (and shave her head bald too). But maybe it's just me having a weird thought; although Kate was supposed to be sick, she still somehow managed to look beautiful...bald head, pale face and all (well, in the beginning of the show anyways). And, when she gets a boyfriend in a hospital (portrayed by Thomas Dekker...too cute of a boy, even bald-headed), it just makes me feel so envious. Heck, even sick girls get to get a boy in their life...what's wrong with me? I guess I'm looking too much into this. PMS maybe..LOL! Just goes to show how skewed the world is (or in my mind anyways): pretty people almost always are on top. I digress..

I liked the way the movie portrayed the story...even though the movie was so different from the book, I liked the way we get to see the different situations through the characters' eyes. And it was really heart-breaking too to watch a good family torn apart because of an illness. You'd definitely need lots of tissue to watch this movie.