50/50

My main concern regarding 50/50 is that it will be largely ignored by audiences during its theatrical run. Already I've spoken to a number of people who state that they do not want to see a (using their words) "comedy about cancer". They are most certainly missing out, as this movie manages to be so much more. It's thoughtful, wise, uplifting, hilarious, sad, dramatic, and highly entertaining. Like the best movies, it refuses to be pigeonholed to a specific genre. It's most certainly not just a "comedy about cancer".

As has been widely publicized, the film's screenwriter, Will Reiser, based the film on his own experiences on being diagnosed with, and surviving cancer. The film's co-star, Seth Rogen, is an old friend of Reiser's in real life, and plays the best friend of Reiser's on-screen counterpart, Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Walking into the movie, I expected a wonderful performance from Gordon-Levitt (and I got one), but I was especially impressed with Rogen, who I am not a particularly huge fan of. Oh sure, I've enjoyed him in some films (most notably Funny People and Observe and Report), but more often, Rogen as a lead actor does not sit well with me. But here, I found him quite funny, and surprisingly sensitive. Sure, he's pretty much doing the same big, dopey lug routine that he does in almost all of his movies, but here, there's a bit more sincerity behind his performance, and his one-liners are funnier.

As the film opens, Adam is a happy young man with a supportive artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and a job writing for a local radio station. He's had some nagging back pains lately, but he's not very concerned about it, until his doctor comes back with the diagnosis that Adam has a rare form of spinal cancer. The doctor is vague about Adam's chances for survival, but doing some private research on his own, he learns that he has a 50% chance. He breaks the news to his girlfriend, his best friend Kyle (Rogen), and finally to his mother (Anjelica Huston), who is already dealing with having to take care of her husband, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, and now finds herself constantly fretting about her son. Of the three, Kyle takes the news the best, and sticks by Adam to the end. The extent Adam's girlfriend does is get him a dog to cheer him up, and drive him to the hospital sometimes. She soon breaks down from the pressure of having to deal with Adam's illness, and leaves him.

The movie follows Adam as he goes through the different stages of anger and eventual acceptance about his disease. He's helped along the way by Katherine (Anna Kendrick), a young therapist who is assigned to help Adam work through his feelings, and winds up getting more involved in her patient's situation than I think a therapist is supposed to. He's also helped by a pair of fellow cancer patients played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, who provide a witty commentary on what Adam is going through, and what he can expect. While a lot of things have clearly been simplified, there is a lot of honesty in the screenplay, and you can tell that Reiser is writing both from experience and his own imagination. The movie uses a fairly basic formula, but it is smart and well-written, and often quite hilarious. It knows when it's okay to laugh, and when it has to take itself seriously. Best of all, it never feels like a "disease movie", nor does it feel overblown. When the time comes for Adam to have surgery to have the tumor removed, very little is said, or needs to be, as the physical performances of the actors say plenty.

What impressed me the most about 50/50 is how interesting the characters are. These are well-developed people who change during the course of the film, and don't just stay on one course. Of particular note is Anjelica Huston as Adam's mother, who could have easily have been made out to be an overly protective and smothering shrew, but thanks to some third act developments, comes across as being much more human than we anticipated. Even Adam's friend Kyle, who spends most of the film trying to teach Adam how he can use his cancer to pick up women, ends up being more sympathetic. Best of all, these don't feel tacked on, as if the screenplay is suddenly asking us to feel for these characters. The changes and developments feel natural.

I'm sure there will be those who think the movie glosses over the more serious reality of living with cancer, and those people would probably be right. But, it would also be right to say that the movie is engaging, funny, and warm. To me, those qualities win out in the end. This movie is a wonderful entertainment, and while I doubt it will hit gold at the box office, it's a movie well worth seeking out.

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