Sometimes a sad story isn't just a manipulative venture that makes you cry.

Sometimes, as in "The Notebook," it's a tale well-told that brings out honest emotions.

Sometimes it's in a movie such as "My Sister's Keeper."

My life precludes a lot of reading for pleasure, but when a friend (thanks, Missy!) recommended the Jodi Picoult novel of the same title, I knew it would be a great read because she has excellent taste. I did not realize how absorbed I would become in the book's characters or how well I would remember them more than a year later.

The screenplay is, of course, based on the book. And while it cannot include all of the characters or situations that the novel provides, it beautifully handles the story arc despite a radical change in the ending that nevertheless serves the story quite well.

Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin), 11, is tired of donating body materials to her dying older sister, Kate (Sofia Vassileva), who has lymphoma. Anna, who was conceived to provide bone marrow and the like to her sister, loves Kate, but the thought of a kidney donation is too much for the younger child.

So Anna takes a drastic step: She seeks out attorney Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) to have herself "medically emancipated" from her parents. All she wants, the girl says, is control over her own body. She's important, too, she points out to her family. Donating a kidney is the last straw because this could prevent her from leading a normal life.

Her mother (Cameron Diaz), can't understand why Anna would want to do such a thing. After all, Anna's sister's life is at stake. But the girls' brother (Evan Ellingson) and father (Jason Patric), support Anna.

Just as the book unfolds with chapters devoted to the perspectives of each character, so we learn scene by scene about each family member and the struggles each has endured, from the diagnosis to family arguments. The most tender scene focuses on Kate's involvement with a young man (Thomas Dekker) who also has cancer and the beautiful romance that unfolds because they understand each other so well.

This is a delicately told story about dying, a subject that so many movies are loathe to embrace. I applaud its courage.