The idea of a comedy about cancer is hardly unheard of. After all, the cable series The Big C is based on exactly that premise. But the very savvy new film 50/50 — named for the odds of surviving the cancer that young NPR radio segment producer Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) contracts — handles the precarious tonal balancing act with impressive ease.
The film is written by cancer survivor Will Reiser (former Da Ali G Show staffer), a good friend of Seth Rogen, who encouraged him to exploit his experiences.
Rogen is one of the producers of the film, who cast himself as Adam’s raucous buddy. He comes close to sinking the project with his overly broad performance style, but to the credit of Reiser’s screenplay and to the deft touch of director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), 50/50 is an assured comic vehicle. It occasionally grabs us by the throat with emotional resonances, yet never spills over into the expected morass of sentimentality.
Adam is only 27 when he develops a backache whose cause is a malignant tumor that has him envisioning his demise. But to his buddy Kyle (Rogen), who accepts the job of cheering Adam up, cancer can be a babe magnet if mentioned deftly in the right watering holes. After all, Adam’s toxic girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), a bad match under the best of conditions, quickly disappeared from the scene once she learned of his medical condition
50/50 even manages to find humor in chemotherapy, as Adam learns coping skills from two veterans of the treatment (Philip Baker Hall, Matt Frewer). And thanks to some shrewd line readings, Anjelica Huston steals the scenes she is in, playing Adam’s overbearing mother who already has a dementia-addled husband in tow.
And while psychotherapy can be a stale source of sitcom humor, it is refreshed by the likes of Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air) as a hospital-assigned therapist-in-training. In over her head, her every gesture of comfort feels studied, exposing her inexperience all the more, and she soon starts to have romantic feelings for Adam.
Even in the company of these canny supporting players, Gordon-Levitt manages to maintain the attention of the film’s center, with his sorrowful eyes and hangdog demeanor. In films from The Lookout to (500) Days of Summer to 50/50, he has established himself as a versatile actor to be reckoned with.
With its subject matter, 50/50 is a textbook hard-sell film with an instant turn-off factor. But get past your disease-of-the-week film prejudices and see this crafty comic take on learning to live in the face of death.
50/50. Director: Jonathan Levine. Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Anjelica Houston, Bryce Dallas Howard. Distributor: Summit Entertainment. Rating: R. Now playing at area theaters.