50/50

6.3/10 dropps
R, 1 hr. 39 min.
Directed by: Jonathan Levine
Written by: Will Reiser
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick
In Theaters: Sept. 30, 2011
Summit Entertainment

Jonathan Levine’s 50/50 is a film that’s sure to catch the same crowd following the likes of 500 Days of Summer or Juno. It’s that quirky comedy mixed with drama and romance that tries to implement a deep and profound statement about life, love and death. And while 50/50 takes strides above and beyond other movies about facing death and love, it still has an affinity for the precious and non-confrontational mistakes of other Hollywood-ized stories.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a 27-year-old who doesn’t smoke or drink, but rather, is a self-proclaimed recycler. Still, he’s diagnosed with a certain type of cancer, which he can’t even pronounce. Everyone, including his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas howard), his mother (Anjelica Huston), his best friend (Seth Rogen) and his amateur therapist (Anna Kendrick) say they will always stand by his side. Still, Adam assures everyone that he’s fine, although of course he’s not.

Director Levine does a great job of showing the most important actions throughout the film rather than giving the audience unnecessary and repetitious moments. It’s a tactic often used in writing, where the reader (audience) is only given what is necessary to know and then are never told the same thing twice. Levine makes great use of editing and cuts when he only shows friends and the family’s reactions to Adam breaking the bad news. These cuts aren’t misleading, yet they provide some comic relief in a rather heavy-handed story.

Gordon-Levitt does a convincing performance of cancer-ridden Adam–if not a little deadpan. He seems to react to life-and-death experiences very casually and logically. When the world finally crashes around him near the end of the movie, the emotional moments are impactful and life-like. Seth Rogen provides most of the typical comedy in this drama. His performance seems type-casted to roles he’s played before, as the raunchy, boisterous pal. Some of his scenes draw out laughter from the audience, but he doesn’t seem quite as committed as Gordon-Levitt. Instead, he chooses to rely on easy laughs and the worn-out appeal of his overall demeanor.

Even Anna Kendrick as the inexperienced therapist, Katie, plays a similarly nervous and edgy individual (see, Up in the Air). The connection between Katie and Adam is strained–purposefully–but their relationship is a logical next step as Adam’s girlfriend quickly realizes that the situation she’s found herself in is more than she can handle.

But that’s exactly what this movie is: logical. Almost everything in this movie goes how you would expect. From the girlfriend leaving the cancerous boyfriend, to the father with Alzheimer’s disease, to the other cancer patients who crack jokes in the face of death, this film toes a line between freshness and formula. That’s not to say that it doesn’t accomplish some of what it sets out to do in an unexpected and strangely fitting manner. When Katie finds it difficult to touch Adam in a nurturing, yet professional, way there’s an inevitable smirk that stretches across the audience’s face.

Still, the film feels void of conflict. It finally comes to a boil near the end–and deserves a little bit of empathy–but it plays it too safe. 50/50 wants to be funny, but it’s never roaring; it wants to be dramatic, but it never gives you an honest insight into the life of a dying young man. It should have had people leaving the theater simultaneously choking up and chuckling. Instead, it leaves you with a feeling of complacency, as if you’re thinking to yourself, they really made that film nicely, and nothing more.

–Robert Miller