50/50 is 100%
Movie Review by Kelly Laymon

50/50 begins with a healthy young Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) taking a morning run through the streets of Seattle, getting ready for work alongside his artist girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), then getting picked up for work by his childhood buddy and Seattle public radio station co-worker Kyle (Seth Rogen). Along the way, Adam makes a comment about an appointment with a doctor after work.

If you’ve seen or heard any talk show of any kind on over the past couple of weeks, there’s a decent chance that you’ve seen Rogen and Gordon-Levitt interviewed about this project. And perhaps they’ve had Rogen’s buddy, comedy writer Will Reiser, with them. Reiser wrote this script, which Rogen produced, about their experience when Resier was diagnosed with a rare tumor on his spine and Rogen was the real-life inappropriate friend who didn’t know the right things to say or do.

Upon learning of his diagnosis, Adam (the character based on Reiser) begins chemotherapy and starts seeing a psychiatrist. The scenes with his chemotherapy pals, played by older fellas and great character actors Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, are real highlights. And, unfortunately, given movie formulas, you just know one of the two old timers won’t make it. His psychiatrist-in-training, Katherine, is played by Anna Kendrick. She is currently working on her dissertation and Adam is her third patient. Ever. Katherine seems like she could be the twin sister of Kendrick’s perky, inexperienced, naïve, by-the-book, super-professional character from UP IN THE AIR (2009).

Bryce Dallas Howard has the unfortunate role of “The Girlfriend Who Didn’t Really Sign On For This Cancer Stuff,” though it becomes clear that there were problems before the diagnosis. Anjelica Huston rounds out the central characters as Adam’s worried-about-everything mother who is also dealing with Adam’s Alzheimer’s-riddled father.

Folks my age grew up with Gordon-Levitt on 3rd ROCK FROM THE SUN (NBC, 1996-2001), but over the last few years, he’s really gained some adult street cred. Though I enjoyed his showy, zero gravity, dream fight sequences in INCEPTION (2010), my big favorite was 500 DAYS OF SUMMER (2009). And I love when a child actor that I watched and liked makes good as an adult. (See Jason Bateman and Neil Patrick Harris.)

It’s hard to write this without acknowledging that the set-up for 50/50 is, at least on the surface, reminiscent of FUNNY PEOPLE (2009). I doubt this would even be in any of our brains if not for the Seth Rogen connection. If Seth Rogen had not produced 50/50 and, say, Joel McHale was in the Kyle role, these few sentences would not have been written. But this is Rogen’s second buddy-of-a-rare-cancer-patient film in the past two years. And he made Patrick Swayze jokes in both films.

However, the two films could not be more different. And I say this as a fan of both. The two films were very personal for the people involved, but in different ways. FUNNY PEOPLE was writer-director Judd Apatow’s love letter to the world of stand-up comedy and the twisted friendships within. The cancer diagnosis was secondary to the comics, almost an afterthought, as if a film about stand-up comics needed something “serious” thrown in to add weight. In the case of 50/50, Rogen and Reiser wanted to tell the story of what they actually experienced when this happened to them a few years back. The cancer in 50/50 isn’t a set up for something else. That IS the story.

50/50 contained only one little annoying film cliché that I’m really tired of: the insensitive doctor who uses Big Science Words and doesn’t speak to patients like normal people. Maybe doctors ARE that way. I don’t know. It’s like a requirement in movies about illnesses. In 50/50, at least that scene was right at the beginning and it was short.

It’s been nice to see Rogen grow up a bit, with both FUNNY PEOPLE and 50/50. Many comedic actors are just as good with drama and dark humor as they are standard comedy. As much as I enjoy the classic Bill Murray and Steve Martin comedies, I equally enjoy that they’ve grown up with me. I love the serious and semi-serious Bill Murray of the past ten years or so in movies like BROKEN FLOWERS (2005), LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003), the Wes Anderson films, etc.. (Though you could say it started with ED WOOD (1994).) The same goes for Steve Martin. I’d much rather see him in more films like SHOPGIRL (2005) or IT’S COMPLICATED (2009), rather than another one of those PINK PANTHER flicks.

The laughs and emotions are genuine in 50/50. Nothing feels forced. And the friendship between Adam and Kyle is believable. You buy that these guys have been buddies for years. I could get into the sappy and emotional side of the film, but I’d need a bottle of wine to “go there”. I’ll just say there were people in the theatre blubbering through the chuckles. Which is an amusing segue to end on a higher note…I was carded at the box office when I went to buy my ticket on Friday morning. I’ve only been carded once and that was for KILL BILL PART 1 (2003). Of all of the nasty R-rated comedies I’ve seen with nudity and graphic simulated sex and everything else you could name, THIS is the one I get carded at? I don’t even think they showed boobs during the one mild sex scene.

I guess I’m like Kyle. I’m not good with illness, death, and emotions, and rely on humor. I’d have to go with four and a half knives.

© Copyright 2011 by Kelly Laymon

Kelly Laymon gives 50/50 - four and a half knives!

This entry was posted on October 5, 2011 at 3:21 am and is filed under 2011, Based on a True Story, Comedies, Dark Comedies, Kelly Laymon Reviews, R-Rated Comedy with tags 50/50, Anna Kendrick, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogan, Will Resier. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.