With 50/50 there is very little an audience member needs to “get”. It’s all right there in the title. In the first few minutes of the film we meet Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a seemingly healthy 27-year-old with a career, a girlfriend and his whole life ahead of him. Then there’s bad news. Adam learns he has a rare form of spinal cancer and as the title insinuates, there’s a 50% chance of survival. Simple, clean, moving on…
There is nothing ground-breaking in terms of what I’ve just described for you when it comes to a film dealing with cancer. And the one thing you’re going to hear from most critics is how well director Jonathan Levine has managed to balance both comedy and drama as the characters stare cancer in the face and do their best to laugh while doing so. Critics that focus on this aspect of the story would be right, 50/50 is a perfect blend of comedy and drama, but I actually took a little something else away from it — the relationships. As it turns out, the tagline which reads, “It takes a pair to beat the odds,” is more than just a pun.
So often a film like this will only give us the story from the perspective of the character at the center of it all. In this case that’s Adam and, for the most part, that’s exactly what this film does. However, it wasn’t until late into the picture where I finally started to clue in to just what exactly Levine and screenwriter Will Reiser had done. Through several subtle character building moments a story is established for the people in Adam’s life, established in such a way that you begin to understand what they’re dealing with as much you relate to what Adam is going through.
50/50 is as much about cancer and Adam’s struggle with the disease as much as it is about those around him, and for that I have a whole other respect for this film. Cancer doesn’t just affect the person with it, at least not as long as that person is surrounded by people that love and care for them. Adam is one such person and to watch his friends and family deal with the situation in their own, differing ways is a perfectly placed layer on the cake.
Rogen is equally funny and annoying as Adam’s overbearing friend who is certainly far from politically correct when it comes to dealing with Adam’s cancer, suggesting he use it to gain sympathy from women. Alternatively, Adam’s self-absorbed girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) finds his cancer a hindrance and his mother (Angelica Huston) approaches it as any worthy mother would, with all the care in the world. “I only smothered him because I love him,” she says late in the picture. It’s a line that earns a laugh as well as a greater understanding for what she’s going through and how she’s dealing with it and Huston plays it to the hilt, reaching out to her boy with affection you can’t help but be moved by.
However, the one portion of the story I never quite felt worked was the introduction of Katie (Anna Kendrick), Adam’s just-out-of-college appointed therapist who’s struggling to do and say the right things at every turn. I never quite bought Kendrick as a therapist and I never felt a chemistry between her and Gordon-Levitt. Kendrick feels more like the obvious choice for the role rather than best choice, and she ultimately brings very little to the table, playing more-or-less the same character she played in Up in the Air. It just never feels quite right.
More interesting and therapeutic are Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer as two cancer patients Adam meets and goes through chemotherapy with. Despite a large age and life difference, there’s a believable camaraderie that results from the time these three spend together, creating two more strong relationships in Adam’s life, and Levine couldn’t have found two better people to fill those roles.
This is director Jonathan Levine’s second feature film (third if you count his unreleased 2006 feature, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) following the hipster indie The Wackness back in 2008. I didn’t care much for that film, but Levine certainly shows a lot of growth from that movie to this one as well as shows a greater capacity for featuring characters you can actually relate to. Much of that is due to the casting and a spectacular performance from Gordon-Levitt who deserves Oscar attention for what is a fully formed, measured and nuanced approach to a character dealing with a very serious disease and doing so without overly emotional grabs for the audience’s affection.
50/50 is just as funny as it is dramatic and heartfelt. It doesn’t pander to the audience and is very matter of fact in its dealing with the material. You never feel as if you’ve been manipulated into caring for the people on screen as much as you genuinely feel for them. If I had to guess, there won’t be many dry eyes in the house when this one hits theaters.
