With an excellent cast, the film has a solid foundation in acting and plot. Sofia Vassilieva is heartrending as Kate, who is doomed by cancer. Since nobody else in the family has the right medical make-up to provide her with such things as bone marrow transplants, her parents, Sara, a lawyer played with feverish obsession by Cameron Diaz, and Brian, portrayed as supportive but more nuanced and less hysterical by Jason Patric, arrange to have a genetically-engineered child for the purpose of being Kate’s perpetual donor.

Kate’s younger sister, Anna, is played by Abigail Breslin, and we know what a fine young actress she is. At 11, Anna is fed up and rebellious at having spent her life giving of her body to Kate. The final straw is the need to take her kidney. Her mother’s whole being is geared around saving her doomed daughter, with Anna’s feelings and well-being shunted aside. Anna finds a sympathetic lawyer, given a fine performance by Alec Baldwin, who sues on her behalf to get medical independence in order to make her own decisions. It’s child against mother, with mom the opposing lawyer in court.

The ethical and legal issues are profound. But the film is more intent on turning the material into soap suds. The lawyer is made an epileptic. The judge, although sympathetically played by Joan Cusack, turns out to have lost her own daughter to cancer. The music is not only relentless, but if bubbles are blown we get a song about blowing bubbles. Add a side story about Kate developing a close relationship with another cancer patient. We know he’ll die.