'50/50' A Review

'50/50' is a film about a young man who gets cancer and how he deals with it. It's funny, light, touching, and rings both true and false at points. Adam(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has a flaky girlfriend who he doesn't know how to deal with, an over anxious mother, and a best friend Kyle(Seth Rogen) who takes nothing seriously. The movie plays out through his relationships with these three and their reactions to his cancer diagnosis.

A big part of the film is his frequent chemo treatments and his subsequent visits to his therapist Katie(Anna Kendrick). The most touching truthful parts of the film Adam's scenes with his fellow patients. The scenes are brief but you get a palpable genuineness from them, a playfulness.

The friendship between Adam and Kyle is great. It brings a lightness to the serious situation without making light of it. Just because you have cancer doesn't make you lose your sense of humor. Some people don't know exactly what to say to someone in that situation and the movie addresses that. There are two big black spots on the film for me. First is the doctor who gives Adam the news. He's so obtuse and distant he almost doesn't tell Adam he has cancer. A doctor with the worst bedside manner of all time would have been clearer and more compassionate. The second is Adam's girlfriend Rachel(Bryce Dallas Howard). She was played like a mustache twirling villain when they could have made her a real person and added a dimension to the film.

The movie was funny and (for the most part) felt true.

See It.