50/50 (10/10)

November 26th, 2011

Combining comedy and drama is a tricky business, and it’s a task too far for many a movie. Combining Seth Rogen’s style of comedy with a story about a young man diagnosed with cancer is upping the risk of failure to precarious degrees. 50/50 took the challenge and passed with flying colours. It’s superb.

The situations encountered in this movie are not new to us. What is fresh, though, is the way the characters involved go about resolving them. As I watched, I recognised scenes from other movies and felt certain that at some point 50/50 would fall back on standard outcomes that you or I could write – and many a hack scriptwriter has. Not a bit of it. If ten-a-penny comedy/drama/rom-com scripts say go left, 50/50 goes right, on two wheels, with the horn blaring.

A twinge in Adam’s back turns out to be a great deal more than just a little muscle strain, as he discovers when his doctor tells him he’s got advanced stages of cancer and his chances of survival are rated as...well, I’m sure you can guess. How could this be? He doesn’t smoke, he says, he doesn’t drink; heck, he even recycles. Adam (Joseph Gorden-Levitt, superb at both the comedy side of things and the tragic) returns home to his girlfriend Rachael, the film’s only cartoonish character, and then on to his old high-school buddy and lifelong friend Kyle. Given that Kyle is portrayed by Seth Rogen, you can expect what kind of attitude he has and the level of his humour. Blow-jobs, getting high and shagging, in no particular order.

There are two other women in Adam’s life. His fussy mother, played by Anjelica Huston, who he just can’t deal with, and rookie therapist Katherine (Anna Kendrick), for whom this help and support lark is all new. Adam is her third patient ever and text books, no matter how often they’re quoted back to patients as proof, aren’t a lot of good when the person lying on your therapist’s couch is young and dying.

50/50 has two main themes – the tragidrama and the comedy – and an overarching third one, that of the reactions Adam’s cancer elicits from those who love him. Some step up to the plate; others not so much. Where it excels, though, is in its supplementary themes, and in the manner characters deal with what’s put in front of them. Adam’s father has Alzheimer’s. Why was there a need to put this into the movie? I’ve no idea. It’s not there for laughs (heaven forbid) and it’s not in there to draw more sympathy from the audience. It’s just there, is all. Kendrick’s analyst, well-meaning and wet behind the ears, could quite easily have ended up as a grating character. Her inclusion in the movie isn’t absolutely necessary, in all truth, but if a young love interest has to be inserted then it might as well be done well. Note, too, the subject of Adam’s latest writing piece. It’s not there by accident.

Rogen is, of course, funny. He still has his share of gross-out moments but in the context of the movie his appearances are welcome. A more timid director would have toned down his blustery mannish character and it wouldn’t have been half as effective. Director Jonathan Levine, despite his lack of previous credits, is not timid. Rogen is excellent here, playing essentially the same part he always plays, but in this case he’s the welcome guest at a party as opposed to the most drunken, boorish one. At some point, and preferably soon, Rogen will need to develop another on-screen persona; here, though, he’s essential. Gordon-Levitt carries the film. At first defiant and sure of his survival, watch how he crumbles away as life and death take on more meaning. One particular scene, a hospital scene, was perfection in its delivery of a shit-scared man and rather shook me with its force. Another scene, again in a hospital, sees Adam look up wearily as his hand is being held. He smiles, looks at the person showing him great tenderness and says ‘you know, I’m peeing right now’.

I’m easy to please. Give me a good story with characters that feel real, make them act and behave like people and I’m happy. If you can combine two types of movie in one without either suffering because of it, I’m sold. 50/50 does all of that and is near perfect, building from a standard opening to a third-act crescendo that is a study in what’s so wonderful about well-written movies. This will undoubtedly feature in my best of the year list for 2011.