The idea of a child named Anna (Abigail Breslin) being an engineered baby to create genes in order to save her sister’s life, seems barbaric on the part of a parent. What kind of mother (Cameron Diaz) would allow her second child to be test, poked and cut up for parts? And can you make those decisions to harm a healthy child in order to risk saving a terminal child who may not be capable of being saved anyway? These are the questions that run through a woman’s mind in this waterworks of a tear-jerker from the moment you sit down. And then it happens….something magical transpires. The dialog kicks in. The dynamic of fantastic characters emerge – the lawyer (Alec Baldwin), the judge (Joan Cusack), and the father (Jason Patric) who spends most of his time stepping back to process everybody else’s emotions. What starts out as a ridiculous farce, turns into a highly emotional and believable story about the one thing we know the least bit about in our lives: Death. From the moment I first saw Cameron Diaz – play a ditz years ago – something told me she had the ability to stretch beyond those limitations. With this, she proves how a mother will fight for her young in a heroic monster of a role. Every time you have a technical question, the writer covers all the angles. The movie is written by Jeremy Leven who, despite becoming famous as the scripter for Johnny Depp’s “Don Juan,” has some recent skills in wishy-washy chick flicks with “The Notebook.” Three and a half tiaras. And I’m as shocked by this as you are.
