You know when the world gets you down and your feeling low there's nothing quite like a movie about the slow protracted death of a child with cancer. Yes we are in Weepie territory, a genre admittedly not meant for a man of such masculinity as myself, but hey the giant robots will come soon enough. So, this movie is for the most part exactly what you get on the tin, lots of cancer, lots of crying lots of slow motion happy family moments nudged into poignancy by the specter of death. It briefly flirts with some more interesting moral territory, the cancer kid's sister refusing to be treated as a walking organ donor for her dying sister, but when that is revealed to be a huge fake out, MSK becomes another film about a saintly family dealing with tragedy. And sure it is tragedy, and I'm as capable of empathy as the next guy, but movie rules are different to life rules and a movie so unrelentingly sentimental and cliched is going to get no love from me. If I'm going to be manipulated by a movie I want it done with finesse, something it doesn't come close to managing. Still this comes from a guy who hates ET for the same reasons, and that movie is widely considered to be awesome, so maybe its my cynical unfeeling damage. Also, amidst the demolition I should praise Cameron Diaz, who in between Charlie's Angels movies and romantic comedies with Ashton Kutcher, can be quite a good actress, most notably in Being John Malkovich, but she handles the mother with the stiff upper lip quite well. Jason Patric shows up for a while and says 'Hey guys I was in Narc'. And Little Miss Sunshine alum Abigail Breslin continues her quest to be the most insufferably cute actress that ever lived and Director Nick Cassevetes overplays his mournful hand sheening a tearful glaze over the movie that is both heavy handed and dated. But to be fair I heard some sniffling so if your partial to this kind of thing have at it.
Rating: 5/10
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