Movie Review: 50/50
Feb. 11th, 2012 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseYou know how there are certain actors whose films you tend to avoid? Not necessarily because they're bad actors, but because they specialize in a genre that's just not your thing? Seth Rogen is definitely on that list for me. I have nothing against him, and I think he's a decent actor, but his films tend to revolve around characters and themes that I just don't find that interesting. So when I saw the trailer for this movie, and the first bit prominently featured him (and the dude-type jokes he tends to specialize in), I pretty much blanked out the rest of it.
Some months later, I'd heard from several sources that it's not, in fact, a dude-bro comedy, but a well-written take on what it's like to be diagnosed with potentially-terminal cancer. I was still hesitant, but what with finally deciding to give Blockbuster Online a go (review soon) after my rocky break-up with Netflix, I figured it'd make a good inaugural rental.
I was quite pleasantly surprised, then, at how thoughtful and observant this movie was. Rogen does play the dude-bro friend, but in a more restrained role than normal, and he works well as a foil for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's hipster-passive character.
Zooming out to a more metacultural level for a moment, one of the things that struck me while watching this is how unusual it was to see a movie really deal with the subject of cancer. Not in the Nicholas Sparks weepie or Lifetime Movie of the Week way, where it's the catalyst for a character's redemption (or even worse, played as a cheap way to manipulate the viewers' emotions), but with the actual nitty-gritty details. Things like what it's like to hear the diagnosis for the first time (an experience beautifully rendered in this film), how people react when you tell them the news, what the treatments (and the aftereffects of the treatments) are like, or the bits of gallows humor you and your friends indulge in to keep yourself sane. They're difficult subjects, but given the social prevalence of cancer (who hasn't known someone, or known someone who knows someone, who's been on that wheel of treatment, often multiple times?), you'd think there'd be more honest discussion of the subject in our media. And yet it's practically a taboo topic in popular culture, unless it's safely relegated to the realm of character ennobling. (Which is a trope that, rightfully, pisses off many people who've been through such experiences.)
Getting back to the film, the only bit that didn't jibe for me was the therapist character. I don't know if she (and the romance angle between her and the main character) was based on actual events like the rest of the screenplay, but she and Gordon-Levitt didn't seem to have much chemistry, and her presence felt more like a concession to storytelling necessity than a separate character in her own right. Also, speaking as a former psych major, the ethics questions involved in making her the love interest just rubbed me the wrong way.
Still, both as an honest film about a difficult subject and a touchingly genuine story, I don't think I can give this film any greater praise than Brian (who lost his father to colon cancer some years back) did: "This movie hardly made me want to kill everyone involved with it at all." A-
Some months later, I'd heard from several sources that it's not, in fact, a dude-bro comedy, but a well-written take on what it's like to be diagnosed with potentially-terminal cancer. I was still hesitant, but what with finally deciding to give Blockbuster Online a go (review soon) after my rocky break-up with Netflix, I figured it'd make a good inaugural rental.
I was quite pleasantly surprised, then, at how thoughtful and observant this movie was. Rogen does play the dude-bro friend, but in a more restrained role than normal, and he works well as a foil for Joseph Gordon-Levitt's hipster-passive character.
Zooming out to a more metacultural level for a moment, one of the things that struck me while watching this is how unusual it was to see a movie really deal with the subject of cancer. Not in the Nicholas Sparks weepie or Lifetime Movie of the Week way, where it's the catalyst for a character's redemption (or even worse, played as a cheap way to manipulate the viewers' emotions), but with the actual nitty-gritty details. Things like what it's like to hear the diagnosis for the first time (an experience beautifully rendered in this film), how people react when you tell them the news, what the treatments (and the aftereffects of the treatments) are like, or the bits of gallows humor you and your friends indulge in to keep yourself sane. They're difficult subjects, but given the social prevalence of cancer (who hasn't known someone, or known someone who knows someone, who's been on that wheel of treatment, often multiple times?), you'd think there'd be more honest discussion of the subject in our media. And yet it's practically a taboo topic in popular culture, unless it's safely relegated to the realm of character ennobling. (Which is a trope that, rightfully, pisses off many people who've been through such experiences.)
Getting back to the film, the only bit that didn't jibe for me was the therapist character. I don't know if she (and the romance angle between her and the main character) was based on actual events like the rest of the screenplay, but she and Gordon-Levitt didn't seem to have much chemistry, and her presence felt more like a concession to storytelling necessity than a separate character in her own right. Also, speaking as a former psych major, the ethics questions involved in making her the love interest just rubbed me the wrong way.
Still, both as an honest film about a difficult subject and a touchingly genuine story, I don't think I can give this film any greater praise than Brian (who lost his father to colon cancer some years back) did: "This movie hardly made me want to kill everyone involved with it at all." A-
