50/50: review

Chris Taylor reviews the film that bravely combines cancer with comedy.

 

A comedy about cancer doesn’t really sound all that appealing does it? 9 times out of 10, it’s going to be an extremely tasteless affair. In fact, it sounds as appealing as a documentary by Sacha Baron Cohen on Eastern Europe. Luckily for us, 50/50 hits the good side of the odds and comes up as a winner (you really expected a review of a film named 50/50 to not have an odds based pun?).

Based on screenwriter Will Reiser’s actual battle with spinal cancer, 50/50 sees Adam (an excellent, yet again, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) suddenly discovering he has a rare type of cancer, despite him living an obsessively healthy lifestyle. His girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) and his mother (Anjelica Huston) both fuss over him, with varying degrees of success, while his best friend (Seth Rogen in weed smoking, penis joke regular mode) tries to get him to use his illness to get him laid.

There definitely is room for 50/50 to turn into some boorish mess that turns cancer into the butt of a joke, but it manages to toe that very, very thin line expertly. The two extremes can be seen in Seth Rogen’s character, Kyle. For the most part, he is outlandish, womanising and simply another Seth Rogen character, but one scene towards the end gives reason towards his attitude, that he is merely trying to cope with his best friend having cancer.Anna Kendrick also puts in yet another star performance as Adam’s bumbling therapist. She is charming and well-meaning and provides a nice contrast to the other women in the film.

VERDICT

50/50 knows exactly when to be funny and when to bring out the emotions. Dealing with such a heavy subject matter and trying to make it humours is a dangerous game to play, but 50/50 plays it and comes out top.