50/50 (15.)
Directed by Jonathan Levine.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston and Philip Baker Hall. 100 mins
This comedy about a young man diagnosed with cancer is bold, moving, honest and very funny; and I would have been perfectly happy never to have seen it. Whether it is the cancer/comedy, the cancer/ romance, the cancer/ road movie or the cancer/ science film trilogy, the cancer hybrid is never a fifty fifty split, cancer is always the overbearing partner. I left the cinema knowing that it had condemned me to a grim, paranoid week of obsessive prodding and caressing of various orifices in the search for lumps.
On my way out I overheard some web oracle complain that it was “so formulaic.” Clearly for him the film was flawed for not picking one of the more capricious, fanciful cancers, but cancer is as stolid and punctilious and unyielding as Westminster council parking policy: there are no exceptions and there is no mercy.
So when Adam (Gordon-Levitt), a radio producer in his twenties, is diagnosed with a malignant tumour on his back we know the prescribed range of miseries that lay ahead of him. The film, based on writer Will Reiser’s own experiences does though manage to stray from the formula in one respect.
Normally in a movie such a diagnosis instils the previously unremarkable victim with a massive injection of pluck and courage, but Adam seems unstirred by it all. The film doesn’t see him surrender to the tyranny of positive thinking. Instead he treats it with the resigned acceptance of someone who has been largely underwhelmed with life so far. He also shows a rather British reticence about it all, a reluctance to force him into hogging all the attention.
The aim of such film is does it make you laugh through your tears and I will confess that on one occasion at least a tear had made it far enough done to drop into a guffawing mouth. Seth Rogen is the frequently inappropriate best friend who struggles to adapt. He’s good value and the film has many laugh out loud moments, but ultimately, it’s a tough time.
Directed by Jonathan Levine.
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston and Philip Baker Hall. 100 mins
This comedy about a young man diagnosed with cancer is bold, moving, honest and very funny; and I would have been perfectly happy never to have seen it. Whether it is the cancer/comedy, the cancer/ romance, the cancer/ road movie or the cancer/ science film trilogy, the cancer hybrid is never a fifty fifty split, cancer is always the overbearing partner. I left the cinema knowing that it had condemned me to a grim, paranoid week of obsessive prodding and caressing of various orifices in the search for lumps.
On my way out I overheard some web oracle complain that it was “so formulaic.” Clearly for him the film was flawed for not picking one of the more capricious, fanciful cancers, but cancer is as stolid and punctilious and unyielding as Westminster council parking policy: there are no exceptions and there is no mercy.
So when Adam (Gordon-Levitt), a radio producer in his twenties, is diagnosed with a malignant tumour on his back we know the prescribed range of miseries that lay ahead of him. The film, based on writer Will Reiser’s own experiences does though manage to stray from the formula in one respect.
Normally in a movie such a diagnosis instils the previously unremarkable victim with a massive injection of pluck and courage, but Adam seems unstirred by it all. The film doesn’t see him surrender to the tyranny of positive thinking. Instead he treats it with the resigned acceptance of someone who has been largely underwhelmed with life so far. He also shows a rather British reticence about it all, a reluctance to force him into hogging all the attention.
The aim of such film is does it make you laugh through your tears and I will confess that on one occasion at least a tear had made it far enough done to drop into a guffawing mouth. Seth Rogen is the frequently inappropriate best friend who struggles to adapt. He’s good value and the film has many laugh out loud moments, but ultimately, it’s a tough time.
