Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star in "50/50"
Making a comedy about cancer is risky business. Making a comedy about a young, attractive person with cancer is self-sabotage. People don’t go to mainstream movies to be bummed out, or to be offended by the trivializing of something that should bum them out. Director Jonathan Levine (“The Wackness”) has a simple solution to this dilemma. He didn’t make a comedy — or a movie about cancer. Contrary to the marketing, “50/50” isn’t a laugh-a-minute raunch-fest aimed at teens and 20-somethings; it’s a sweet, balanced drama for adults about the utility and power of friendship and family in the face of life’s cold, indifferent realities. Sometimes relationships don’t work. Sometimes dear friends and loved ones die for no reason. Sometimes young people get cancer. But these facts, immutable as they are, are not immune to the marginalizing power of context.
Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a 27-year-old public radio journalist in Seattle. His swanky pad houses his gorgeous artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), his dapper wardrobe and all the hope and anticipation of a life that’s just getting going. But wait, what’s this lump on my back? Oh probably nothing. It really hurts though. Better get it checked out. How the fuck did I get spinal cancer? Or more accurately, how the fuck did I get spinal cancer? And so the battle begins.
“50/50” could have easily been one of the worst films of the year. It tip-toes around so many potential pitfalls and clichés it’s a marvel it turned out as well as it did. Cancer movies are generally composed of a series of teary melodramatic scenes that serve only to teach the characters some pseudo-profundity and set up a sentimental payoff, usually in the form of a tortuous (for the audience) hospital bed death scene. That the screenplay was written by Seth Rogen’s real life friend, Will Reiser, who really had cancer is probably a major factor in making this movie feel so balanced, honest and non-manipulative. It never feels like there’s a lesson necessarily attached to the struggle, or that the filmmaker expects any specific emotional response from the audience. The fact that the principal character wrote the script makes it obvious he survives the cancer, but since the story isn’t driven by suspense, the effect is a positive one.
As good as the script is, it’s really the cast that pulls this thing together. Gordon-Levitt, after a stilted performance in “Inception,” is a welcome surprise. And though their scenes sometimes feel forced, the presence of fellow chemotherapy patients played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, when it works, adds a pitch-perfect mix of levity and perspective. But, the real star of the show is Seth Rogen. His role as the goofy unflappable optimist with a heart of gold is the best of his career. It’s hard to imagine even the most ardent Rogen-haters won’t be won over by this, the most naturally likeable character I’ve seen all year.
