Running Time: 1 hour, 39 minutes
Rating: R
Director: Jonathan Levine
Quick Impressions:
This was definitely my favorite movie of the fall so far, which surprised me because I went in with low expectations. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t expect the movie to be bad. I just wasn’t very interested in a comedy about having cancer. Basically, of all the movies opening, 50/50 looked best, but I still wasn’t too excited.
I should have been excited.
My husband and I laughed throughout the entire movie, often out loud. But there was nothing cheap or forced about the jokes. Often the humor arose from the awkwardness experienced by characters placed in difficult situations, from their own attempts to joke away discomfort, or from their unplanned explosive outbursts when they could no longer suppress their feelings. The characters were funny because they felt real, well-rounded, human. Yet the humor in no way detracted from the serious storyline, dramatic and tense without being melodramatic and depressing.
I knew going in that the screenplay was written by Will Reiser, Seth Rogen’s friend who based the fictional story on his own experiences battling cancer at a young age. “Why didn’t you tell me?” wondered my husband, who thought Rogen had written the screenplay about his friend, making the entire film much more suspenseful.
The Good:
The movie captured my attention so completely that I lost myself in the film and forgot that I was planning to write a review. This happened in part because the characters felt so real, the result of good writing and excellent acting. I haven’t heard much Oscar buzz surrounding this film, but I honestly thought both Joseph Gordon-Levitt as cancer patient Adam and Anjelica Huston as his worried mother gave performances more than worthy of consideration. Seth Rogen is also essential to the film’s success, playing a version of himself as Adam’s best friend Kyle.
Best Joke:
Almost all the jokes in the movie come from Kyle, who is by far the funniest character, partially because he deliberately uses humor to diffuse tension, and partially because he’s just a funny guy. Yes, sometimes he can be a bit annoying, but that’s funny, too, because of the reactions of others, usually Adam. Interestingly, both young women in the movie, Rachael the girlfriend, and Katherine the therapist often generate a lot of humor because of their different kinds of awkwardness. I remember feeling deeply amused when Rachael brought home a surprise and when Katherine introduced herself to Adam’s family at the hospital.
Best Scene:
The confrontation scene at Adam’s home when Kyle directly attacks his friend’s less than wonderful girlfriend Rachael is one of the most uncomfortable, amusing, and strange moments in the movie. It’s hard not to side with Kyle who is at his most emotionally raw and self-revealing here. Still, I think Rachael does deserve a bit of sympathy—just not as much as she intends to take. We see Rachael very clearly in this scene, who she is and what motivates her. Kyle’s hatred of her is a little over-the-top, and, actually, she could probably turn his vehemence to her advantage if she had the self-awareness to recognize her own faults. But she doesn’t.
Most Oscar-worthy Moment:
The end of Adam’s driving spree the night before his big day definitely shows some fine work from Joseph Gordon-Levitt who gives a brilliant (and through most of the movie understated) performance as Adam. I also love every scene Anjelica Huston’s in and particularly enjoyed her icy interaction with the nurse at Dr. Ross’s office.
Funniest Dramatic Scene:
Over a special dinner, Kyle reveals he has cancer to his mother Diane, played by Anjelica Huston, and his father (Serge Houde) who suffers from Alzheimer’s while his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) also sits awkwardly at the table. The whole thing is so funny and so sad, very bittersweet, from his opening question, “Mom, have you ever seen Terms of Endearment?” (I’m sure she has), to his father’s confusion, his girlfriend’s pretense of strength, and his mother’s trip to the kitchen. You smile, sometimes laugh, but you also feel these people’s pain and relate to it.
Best Surprise:
One of the most poignant moments of the film comes when Adam finds something telling on the back of Kyle’s toilet. Granted, this is one of those moments so cinematically effective that it seems a bit contrived, but even if this scene is a device to inform Adam and the audience, the information that we learn about Kyle is key to understanding both his character and his interactions with his friend Adam. Something has to tell us the depth of Kyle’s feelings for his friend.
Best Scene Visually:
I liked the scene of Adam leaving the hospital after his first chemo treatment. He’s been sharing macaroons with his new friends, and his perspective as he walks through the halls passing murals, patients, and a cadaver just before he wakes up at home with a very different reaction can be read as a visual metaphor for the underlying conflict of the movie.
The Negatives:
The one character I found less than convincing was Anna Kendrick’s therapist Katherine. I’m not necessarily blaming Kendrick, but the character just doesn’t seem as realistic as the others. At twenty-four, she is young, but she behaves more like someone who is eighteen and has had no training whatsoever. She’s beyond nervous; she’s incompetent. People who might die of cancer should be referred to a more capable therapist. I realize that people like Katherine probably actually exist. And I’ve been a young professional myself, once upon a time. But twenty-four is not that young if you’ve had the proper training.
She reminds me of a friendly person you’d come across hanging around in your college dorm. You’d tell her about some crisis, and she’d reply, “Oh my gosh! That is so awful! You poor thing! You must feel like killing yourself.”
She’s very sweet but horribly inept. I can only assume that she’ll be ethically free to get to know Adam better one day very soon when all her remaining patients commit suicide, and she changes professions.
That brings up another slight complaint about the movie. There are three female characters (not counting people we only meet for a minute or two), and the only one who seems realistic is the mother. Rachael is a terrible girlfriend for Adam, but she’s not given much of a chance to defend herself. I feel like we only see her through Kyle’s eyes, and Kyle hates her. From everything we see, he seems to be right about her, but his reaction is a little too intense, and we don’t see everything. Rachael is a character we never really know. And Katherine is just ridiculous. She may have qualities that make her very desirable as a girlfriend, but she is a terrible, terrible therapist. You’re twenty-four, Katherine. It’s not too late to change professions. Please become a professor or a dental hygienist or a Kindergarten teacher. You’re a lovely girl, but you should not be counseling patients who are emotionally fragile and facing death.
I understand why Adam likes Katherine. I like her, too. She seems like a good person. But she is a bad, bad therapist. How would Adam feel if the surgeon behaved the way Katherine does?
Still, the movie succeeds in spite of these small flaws and really excels when focusing on the friendship between Adam and Kyle.
The Performances:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives a magnificent performance as Adam, a young man fighting cancer and coming to terms with the chilling fact that he may die. Gordon-Levitt is good in every movie, but his performance here is so strong that I’m surprised I’m not hearing more Oscar buzz. As Adam, he goes through such a range of emotions, all so realistically. The performance is never showy, but it is big when it counts. I thought he was much, much better than Brad Pitt in Moneyball (and Pitt was good).
Anjelica Huston is also magnificent as Diane. Right now, I’m struggling to think of a performance of Huston’s that I like better. She seems so real in this movie. You believe every word, every glance, every gesture. Her part is relatively small, but the character stayed with me even when she wasn’t onscreen. Why aren’t people paying attention to this performance? It was great.
Seth Rogen is in many ways the driving force of the movie as Kyle, Adam’s obnoxious but lovable best friend. With Gordon-Levitt’s talent for capturing the character, the movie could certainly succeed without Rogen, but it couldn’t succeed as a comedy.
Anna Kendrick was good as Katherine, but I had trouble accepting the character. In many ways, I think that Kendrick’s charisma makes Katherine more likeable and bearable to watch. Imagine if a young professional behaved the way Katherine does and did not have Kendrick’s charm and appeal!
Bryce Dallas Howard seems to be rather successfully reinventing herself as someone who always plays rotten women. She’s very good as Rachael, vaguely sympathetic, frighteningly despicable, and awkwardly amusing all in the same moment.
Matt Frewer and Philip Baker Hall were also quietly amazing as Mitch and Alan, two older cancer patients who befriend Adam and help him to survive his treatments.
Overall:
50/50 was a great movie, highly entertaining, and very funny without sacrificing the serious side of the material. I don’t remember ever laughing out loud so much during a movie about cancer, and I loved so many of the characters, even if I did squirm a bit at the therapist’s incompetence and the girlfriend’s inadequacy. Seth Rogen is charming and lovable, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anjelica Huston turn in performances that certainly seem Oscar worthy to me, even if no one else is paying attention.