My Sisters Keeper

Conceived by means of in vitro fertilization, Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) was brought into the world to be a genetic match for her older sister, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), who suffers from acute promyelocytic leukemia, in order to keep her alive. Her family members are introduced one by one and each tells about how Kate's illness has affected them personally and the family. When Kate turns 15, she goes into renal failure. Eleven-year-old Anna knows that she will be forced by her parents to donate one of her kidneys. She also realizes that she may not be able to live the life she will want to lead - she may be unable to cheer-lead, play soccer, or be a mother. Anna tells her parents that she does not want any of this, and proceeds to sue them for medical emancipation and the rights to her own body. Her overprotective mother, Sara (Cameron Diaz), who leads an obsessive campaign to keep Kate alive, is indignant at Anna's decision and even strikes her across the face when she receives the notice of intended prosecution. The film is interlaced with flashbacks that detail Kate and Anna's closeness, as well as how Kate's illness has affected her siblings' lives and their relationships. 
Throughout the film, lighten is used to help portray the different emotions experienced throughout by the different characters. Happy, cheerful scenes, use very clean low contrast lighting, and more dramatic, emotional scenes were high contrast, but not so much it created a noticeable difference from the low contrast scenes but just enough to effect the audience’s emotion.
The mise en sene used in this film is simplistic to the lifestyle of a the every day family. The costume and settings used help the audience connect with the story as it makes it more clear that his devastating story happened to just an ordinary family. The scenes of the beach add to the sadness of the story, the soft lightening of the sunset over the sick girl show a more spiritual side and how she is at ease with her fate. The normal clothes of the family also show their normality in that their problems are hidden and cant be seen from an onlooker. Just like most people tend to hide their problems from the opening world. The natural lighting adds to the sense of realism of this film. 

In the opening of this film a number of features allow the audience to have an idea that the genre of the film is drama. During the opening sequence a number of family/childhood images used meaning that perhaps something is going to upset the family. The images shown are very dream like and happy suggesting that they are thoughts and memories from the past. The use of warm colours and the calming music in the background used shows the love of the family and infers that everything is happy with the family, however, the narration over lapping this reflects the drama of the movie. This intrigues the audience as it shows them that not everything is as it seems and they want to find out what emotional and destructive things are going to occur. The wording used by the young girl speaking draws in the viewers showing this method is very effective. 'Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Kate had have been healthy', this endearing line leaves the audience wanting to find out who was kate and what happened to her. The use of hand held camera shows that life is a bumpy road and with the home style shows the love and compassion amongst the family. This allows us to relate to the scene of family life. The dissolves from scene to scene add to the sense that the memories are from the past and are fading. The quite, calm music, gives a warm feel with the voiceover determining the genre of the film. The opening is concluded with a shot of the main character Anna appears, she is in a cold yet in a comforting place. The silence keeps the audience interested as they wait for her gripping story. I think this is very effective as it does not reveal much from the following story, so we are wanting and searching to find out what happened to what seems to be a loving family. 
The target audience is a female audience, this is suggested in that it is an emotional film, in which most females would enjoy compared to a male audience. The different emotions through out the movie, and the family aspect of it make it this genre.