Review

Review Date: 2-October-11
Spoiler Rating: High
Juju Judgment: Just OK

50/50 (2011)

Anyone interested in 50/50 probably knows that screenwriter Will Reiser based the movie on his own experience with cancer in his mid-twenties and that Reiser's friend, actor Seth Rogen, helped bring the story to the screen with his trademark crude comedy, thereby challenging the notion that movies about serious illness need to be dramatic or weepy. For me the appeal of this premise is what I might call "preemptive catharsis," i.e., the opportunity to understand an ordeal which everybody must fear and to see how it might be handled with the composure that underlies a sense of humor. Approached with these expectations, 50/50 disappoints. It's not a bad movie by any means, but it's not so much comic as "lite."

The film's strong point is star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is as cute as a button and invites compassion for the Reiser character, a mild-mannered radio reporter named Adam. Bothered by night sweats and back pain, Adam visits the doctor and is informed perfunctorily that he has a malignant tumor on his spine. This causes less upheaval in his life than one might expect. He breaks the news to his mother (Anjelica Huston) but keeps her at a distance to avoid being fretted to death. (His father has Alzheimer's disease, so there's no chance of father-son bonding.) He sits through chemotherapy treatments and befriends a couple of old guys who enjoy medical marijuana. He goes out with his horndog pal (Rogen, annoying as usual) and they use the cancer angle to pick up chicks, although Adam's body is not up to sex. In short, he endures the hardships of his sickness without freaking out. To do so he must be brave or numb, but the contours of his bravery or numbness aren't explored. The audience's position is similar to that of his mother, who gets glimpses of what her son is going through but longs to know more.

Immediately after being diagnosed, Adam is referred to a counselor to help him cope with the emotional aspects of the crisis. This is 50/50's biggest missed opportunity. Discussions about grief, anger, terror, confusion, and whatever else a cancer patient feels might be a gold mine for insight and wry humor. Instead, the counselor turns out to be a young woman (Anna Kendrick) who doesn't prompt Adam to talk much but broadens his romantic horizons by being everything his shallow, self-absorbed girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) is not. Kendrick is winning, but her presence changes the movie from a bold experiment to another by-the-book fairy tale in which the hero meets The One while stuck with a dud and overcomes obstacles before earning a happy ending. To make their film stand out, Reiser and Rogen should have left Adam's love life alone and focused on the disease that made him unlucky and the response to it that made him extraordinary.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.