50/50 stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the twenty-something protagonist who discovers that he has spinal cancer. The title refers to his chances of survival. Seth Rogen plays his best friend. Will Reiser wrote the film, and it is autobiographical though the protagonist is named Adam and has a different job. In real life, Reiser and Rogan are friends, and they actually restrained themselves from using all their real-life experiences in the film. For instance, Rogen was using the toilet when Reiser delivered the news, but it is not in the film. Booooooooo!
50/50 is supposed to chronicle Adam’s fight to survive, but it is really cancer as a meet cute premise in a rom com, which was explicitly not the filmmakers’ goal, but the result. It is a battle between Bryce Dallas Howard and Anna Kendrick as best girl ever, and while I know that they were probably thrilled to get the gig, I felt as if they deserved better. I am not even into Howard, but when did Hollywood decide to typecast her as the worst girlfriend ever in this film, Hereafter and implicitly in the Jurassic World franchise? She went from working with one of the edgiest European auteurs, Lars von Trier, to this. How can she have bills? She is Ron Howard’s daughter. What happened to generational wealth? Maybe she genuinely loved the role.
After seeing A Simple Favor, I realized why I often overlook Kendrick. She is usually defined by her relationship to men and always plays a love interest, a stepping stone on some dude’s journey. Ugh! In 50/50, she is his inexperienced therapist, but it is obvious that their relationship will not be limited to the hospital complete with his hostility to her well meaning efforts to treat him. If it worked out in real life, hurrah, but maybe she should be fired? It was painfully predictable and inappropriate. Kendrick deserves another challenging role that helps her be more than the good woman in the screenplay. My favorite scene is when she meets his family and friend, but now that I know what she can do, I want filmmakers to give her more to do.
50/50’s least interesting character is the protagonist. He is kind of a blank slate, and everyone around him is more interesting: his old and new friends, his family and his dog. He feels defined by what he lacks: driving skills, good health, a solid romantic and/or sexual relationship. Gordon-Levitt is charming, but his protagonist’s most defining characteristic became his anger. I know that I am in the minority, but I felt as if Reiser was not ready to fully convey who he was before cancer hit. Maybe he was nobody before adversity hit and began to sculpt his character, but if you are friends with Rogen and are into movies, I highly doubt it. Rogen does not seem to suffer fools. I do not know if Reiser was deliberately furtive, not ready to reveal that part of himself and/or unable to fully face his past. If the latter, I wish that he waited before writing this movie because unflinching honesty would have made this story work. I glanced at his IMDb filmography, and it seems unlikely that I have ever or will ever see his work since it stops abruptly after this movie.
50/50’s best scenes dealt with his family issues, which do not get a lot of focus in this film, which is fair since he clearly kept his distance from them. Angelica Huston plays his long-suffering mother, who is officially the healthiest person in the family. I kind of wished that the movie was actually about her, but I love films that center older women. The most beautiful moment is when the protagonist talks to his dad, and the role of the dad was so touching and perfect, not overdone. Reiser is better at looking out than looking in. Serge Houde, I do not know you, but you were wonderful as his onscreen dad.
My least favorite scene in 50/50 was seeing The Flash’s little girl have sex with the protagonist. Nooooooooo. I greeted Arya getting down with Gendry with cheers, but was not ready to see Jessica Parker Kennedy in that context. Her character seemed less mature than Arya considering how fixated she is on her dad on the CW series so I think of her as younger than she is. I am going to need Kennedy to play more adults before I can handle her in sexual situations.
I do not deliberately follow 50/50’s director’s films, but I have seen many of them. Jonathan Levine earlier made the uneven All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and subsequently wrote and directed the delightful Warm Bodies, the dull The Night Before and the superb The Long Shot. If I was not looking at is filmography on IMDb, I would not recognize that the same director made these films except for the ones with the same actors. It seems that Levine is at his best when his films have women more in the fore front than when they are a subplot. I do not dig his bro comedies even though I adore Rogen.
Rogen steadily steals the spotlight from Levitt in 50/50, and the chemistry was lacking. Rogen’s scenes with Howard are hilariously memorable. When Adam necessarily confronts Rogen’s character for seemingly exploiting him, I thought that it was necessary, but the resolution was not as striking and needed to hit harder. Adam had more camaraderie with he older dudes, but with Rogen’s character, it felt more obligatory.
I would ordinarily not recommend 50/50, but it did provide me with an epiphany about my health. When I watched it on February 27, 2020, it occurred to me that I may have cancer because I moved similarly to Levitt’s depiction of Adam when he winced in pain while exercising. Did I have schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma? I messaged my medical provider, scheduled a physical and cue global pandemic, which delayed the diagnosis until June. Fortunately if I have cancer, I do not have the type of cancer that is so potentially fatal, and I only need surgery, not chemo. Unfortunately most doctors do not think that cancer causes my pain though I think that it is a convenient coincidence that my pain is on the same side as the mass. We will see. After all, who was in the right category of ailments after watching a single movie versus multiple medical professionals who should have had a better crack at guessing right? So if you watch a movie about cancer and share certain mannerisms as the patient, get to a physician assistant.
Ultimately 50/50 may have helped save my life so regardless of quality, watch it to see whether or not you need to correctly scare your medical provider by asking if you have cancer. Even though I was sympathetic to the protagonist’s plight, your most interesting feature should not be your anger or your ailments. If you like the cast, you will probably find it moderately entertaining, but I would have preferred if literally any other character was the protagonist.