50/50

Whenever dealing with heavy themes, it is always important to find a balance to the material. No one in Hollywood is afraid to laugh about terminal illness anymore, but too many laughs and you risk creating an uncomfortable audience, too few and you risk being a Hallmark television movie of the week. Will Reiser is able to take a frightening part of his life and keep the audience smiling while sharing his heartfelt story of survival. 50/50 is a perfect balance of humor and heart to create a terrific story.

Let me start though with the tagline of the movie "It takes a pair to beat the odds," it's just awful. There is so much more to this movie than just two buddies looking to support each other. In fact there is a great ensemble here that helps convey the story’s message. I understand why the tag line exists; it is to let people know that there are two very popular male leads in the story. But this isn't a movie you are going to want to roll into anyway to forget about life for a while, the featured lead has cancer after all, and while there is plenty of humor behind the story the character still has a 50 percent survival rate, and the movie does not shy away from the emotional moments that come with such a diagnosis.

The movie stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adam, who has just been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of cancer. And to no one’s surprise he plays the role superbly. He goes through the whole range of emotions almost effortlessly yet seems strained while doing it. The strain of course seems natural from a person who can see his own demise. Without the help of Seth Rogan, the performance may have leaned too far towards the depressing. Instead Rogan, who was a producer on the movie, balances out the story with laughs as Adam's best friend Kyle. In the third act though he is able to dig a little deeper into his character and shows why he is so easily likable by audiences despite his usual crassness.

The reason that Rogan does so well though is that he is part of the story that the movie is based on. The movie was written by Will Reiser who worked with Rogan on "Da Ali G Show" which is when he found out he had a serious form of cancer. The first draft of the script which was called "How I Learned Nothing from Cancer" I imagine lacked some of the more heartfelt moments that Gordon-Levitt was able to portray. But Reiser worked with Rogan to reflect back on this period in their lives to examine what really happened from many different perspectives. The combination and reflection both men shared helped to shape the movie.

It wasn't just the men that helped to make a strong finished product, the females co-stars help to elevate the lead actor and sometimes even outshine him. The first woman we meet is Adam's girlfriend played by Bryce Dallas Howard. She is always being cast as the beautiful bitchy character, which she has been playing so well recently. I don't understand how she plays the character so well with her grandparents being the Cunninghams, I suppose good parenting skips a generation. The bigger part though belongs to Anna Kendrick who plays Adam's therapist; she also seems to be cast in similar roles as the young professional who is in over her head. She once again does fantastic in the role and I can't wait to see her more often as she is a great personality to play the love interest in any drama. Anjelica Huston shows her years of experience and is superb as an overbearing mother. Any young person in the audience can identify why Adam may find her annoying but when he finally lets his guard down she shows him the caring and love every mother has for their son; which in turn should make every son feel guilty for blowing them off.

The sadness never becomes unbearable. Sure it may be tough to get through the whole movie without a couple sniffles, especially for those who have been through something like this before. But just when you think all the drama has taken over the actors in the movie will do something unbearably charming and will bring a smile back to your face. Often times while watching a movie I will say to myself “right here” in a hope that the movie will end on a high note, I don’t think any movie has ever gotten so close to a perfect moment, which makes sense as this story is full of near perfect moments. A-