Review: 50/50

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a public radio editor who finds out from his socially inept doctor that he has a form of spinal cancer that gives him, you guessed it, a 50-50 chance of survival. All things considered, that’s relatively high for cancer, but that’s hardly compensation, is it? Oh, and he’s just 27 years old and a perfectly bloody decent young man. A bitch, ain’t it? But it’s OK, he’s got his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) by his side. Well, actually, she seems incredibly uncomfortable around sick people, and there’s the small matter of her cheating on him. Prize catch she is. His mother (Anjelica Huston), meanwhile, is the opposite: too clingy and invading his personal space. Still, she’s a helluva woman, wanting to look after her sick son when her own husband has Alzheimer’s and needs her care too. Gordon-Levitt protests to everyone who will listen that he’s coping just fine, including to his young and rather inexperienced therapist, a grad student played by Anna Kendrick. Did I mention that she’s sweet, adorable, slightly dorky, and incredibly beautiful? Well she is, and she’s also potentially about to cross some therapist-patient boundaries when they run into each other after hours. Meanwhile, good buddy Seth Rogen is trying to keep the laughs coming, even though this doom-laden situation seems to be getting to him too. Not that he isn’t above using his friends illness to pick up chicks out of sympathy. Well, his heart’s in the right place. Kinda. Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer play a couple of cancer patients who dispense sage advice...and pot-laced treats, to Gordon-Levitt during chemo treatments.

Well here’s a movie that almost works. That’s a shame, because this 2011 film from director Jonathan Levine has a lot of things to like about it. For starters, it’s a lot better than Levine’s subpar “All the Boys Love Mandy Lane”. Even the sexy Amber Heard couldn’t save that enervated crap. Scripted by Will Reiser (cousin of alleged comedian Paul Reiser), the film is loosely based on his own experience going through cancer, and supported through it by good friend Seth Rogen, who essentially plays himself here, I guess. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is excellent, believable, and moving. There’s a really nicely developed, somewhat awkward relationship with the absolutely adorable Anna Kendrick. Kendrick has such a warm, compassionate, and slightly awkward vibe here that is thoroughly winning. Yes, her character behaves completely unprofessionally, but at the same time, she also behaves very naturally and empathetically, and a little bit of ‘Hollywood’ in a story never hurt anyone, OK? Something needed to happen, for the sake of the movie. It would play weirdly otherwise, realistic or not. So any shrinks out there whose butts were hurt by this film just need to calm down. I kinda liked it from the POV that her grad school teaching didn’t really tell her just how hard it would be to shut off her most basic feelings. I mean how do you do that? Sure, it’s her job and there are rules, but cut her some slack, he’s only her third patient and he looks like Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Take out the relationship here and you have a much lesser movie, OK?

Unfortunately, there are elements at the periphery here that either don’t quite mesh, or are completely awful, and they drag down what could’ve been an excellent, moving, and even romantic film if it just stuck to its basics. The finale, in particular, has some very strong moments (Gordon-Levitt has one moment of panic and fear in particular that is almost unbearably real. You’ll know it when you see it). How can you not be completely devastated by a life potentially cut far too short? It definitely has you thinking about mortality and your own life. By far the least satisfactory aspect of the film is the character played by Bryce Dallas Howard, a relatively talented actress handed a thankless task. Perhaps this character is based on someone in Reiser’s real-life, but as he writes the role, one wonders if he was really being fair to her. The character comes off as half-arsed, one-note, and selfish to an absurd degree that I just didn’t buy it. The character just doesn’t behave in a way that anyone in the real world would, at least from my own experiences (I’ve not had cancer, but I have lost at least three family members to it, as many of you likely have too). Nor does an exaggeratedly aloof doctor character. I know the point being made, but it’s a truly one-sided, unfair treatment. Perhaps Mr. Reiser needed a writing partner on this film to balance things out and treat each character as respectfully as possible without ruining the points he’s trying to make. I mean, no one in the real world would wait in a car for several hours whilst their cancer-stricken boyfriend was in the hospital. That’s just stupid and horrible. The characters played by Matt Frewer and Philip Baker Hall, whilst very realistically acted by the two (Frewer looks frighteningly realistic as a dying man, actually), are also kinda movie clichés, they’re the cancer equivalent of Rob Reiner and Rita Wilson in “Sleepless in Seattle” or something, except high on weed cookies all the time.

Then there’s the matter of the film’s humour, most of which is supplied by Mr. Rogen (Who also gets one or two very subtle, but effective dramatic moments as well). I kinda like the idea of lightening the very heavy mood with humour, and if Mr. Rogen did indeed get his buddy through a tough time with a few laughs and some medicinal weed, how can one criticise that? In the film, however, the particular brand of humour Mr. Rogen supplies does not quite mesh with the rest of the film. I like profane humour, but it’s unnecessary here, as is the marijuana, and it’s a lumpy fit that might even be a tad inappropriate for what is ultimately a very serious subject. Yes, I know medicinal marijuana is a hot topic these days, but let’s face it, it’s a Seth Rogen thing. If Seth Rogen weren’t the best bud of the screenwriter (and of the lead character), it wouldn’t be in the film, and that was distractingly obvious to me. It was a little on the nose. I’m sure some will appreciate that the film is a little edgier and dirtier than these kinds of films normally are. Indeed, it’s nice that the film doesn’t want to be completely clichéd. But this was one element of straying from the norm that didn’t always work for me. Some of it was funny (the “Total Recall” bit was hilarious), a lot of it was just crass (though not as crass as Rogen’s character in “The 40 Year Old Virgin”, an otherwise very funny film) and maybe even a little cheap. This seems like an uncomfortable mixture of romantic comedy/drama (with a ‘disease of the week’ twist) and Judd Apatow/Seth Rogen comedy, and whilst the former is more emphasised than the latter, the latter is enough of a presence to drag down what could’ve been a terrific film. If the humour helped the screenwriter get through his ordeal, that’s great, but it didn’t always endear the film to me as much as I wanted it to. In fact, I almost wished the part of Seth Rogen was played by Tobey Maguire or Jason Segel, instead. So those are the things bothered me about it.

A lot of people have real problems with the ending, too. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** Some cite it as a typical Hollywood cop-out. To those people, I suggest looking at the fucking title of the movie and shutting the hell up. That’s one complaint I will not make. I was fine with the ending, any other ending would possibly be too devastating. Movies aren’t real-life, and 99.99% of the time, they shouldn’t be, either. Besides, we don’t know what happens after the film ends, do we? ***** END SPOILER *****

There are elements to admire here, and two terrific lead performances, but it just doesn’t come together. Oh, if only it were a little more balanced and a little less caricatured and grubby. This film is so close to getting a recommendation that it almost makes me angry at the film for not quite getting over the line.

Rating: C+