**1/2 out of ****
Directed by: Jonathan Levine
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard and Anjelica Huston
Running time: 99 minutes
It’s not easy to make a comedy centering around a young cancer patient; frankly, if Judd Apatow couldn’t pull off the balance between humour and humanity in Funny People, then you’re unlikely to find a writer or director that gets the formula right.
In comparison to Apatow’s film, Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 isn’t much of an improvement. It should have the humanity, since its scribe Will Reiser based the film off of his own misery when he was diagnosed with cancer. But 50/50 isn’t brave enough to tread these into darker waters given the subject matter and mainly tries to deal with the cancer aspects through broad comedy. This is a film that unfortunately deals with sorrow in a manner that is crass, sarcastic, and bereft of much pathos.
The Reiser figure is 27-year-old Adam Lerner, and he’s played by one of the best young actors of our generation, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Adam is harmless: he doesn’t have the will to stand up to his boss at a public radio station, he doesn’t jaywalk while jogging alongside an empty road, and he puts up with a caniving girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and a crass best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen).
But when Adam learns of a mass in his spine and the iffy heads-tails odds that he will survive with the tumour, the foundations of his life begin to crumble. His mother (Anjelica Huston, sadly underused) begins to infringe on his spare time and his new therapist, Katherine (Anna Kendrick), is a grad trainee with good intentions but inept precision in dealing with human psychology. Meanwhile, Rachael and Kyle have less compassion for Adam and only worry about how his diagnosis will affect them.
Several of the characters in 50/50 are not on the same page as Adam. Some use him and his condition to pick up women (Kyle) or go further in their medical career (Katherine). The same could be said for the film, which uses the cancer as more of a background toward comedy sketch-like ideas than for serious, dramatic insight.
The film doesn’t handle the disease all too seriously. While Reiser’s script aims to use humour as a therapeutic element to help be optimistic about a grave subject, the comedy—which extends from the stoner realm to frank, sexual dialogue in a manner of minutes—often misses the mark. Levity should only be used sparingly, but many of Seth Rogen’s obnoxious comedy antics overwhelm the subject matter to the extent that the film becomes far too silly far too often.
The only sections where 50/50 works is when it focuses on the depths of Adam's dismay, as he battles with the malignant tumour. The final third of the film, when he confronts the possibility of a soon death, is heartbreaking and refreshingly true. Here, Gordon-Levitt is allowed to broadcast a wide range of emotions, as he slowly turns embittered toward those around him.
50/50 only works, appropriately, half of the time. When it focuses on Adam’s psychological motivations and feelings, it’s an extraordinarily honest film. Unfortunately, the comedy elements are not used as a means to confront the pain, but deter Adam’s story from moving forward. It seems that laughter is not always the best medicine.
No comments:
Post a Comment