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Synopsis: 50/50 [Blu-ray]

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen team up to beat the odds in a film that Rolling Stone calls achingly hilarious and heartfelt. Diagnosed with spinal cancer, 27 year old Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) navigates the road to recovery with the sometimes overbearing support of his crude best friend (Rogen), his smothering mother (Angelica Huston) and an inexperienced therapist (Anna Kendrick). Inspired by a true story of writer Will Reiser, 50/50 is an honest yet hysterically funny account of a young man's journey toward healing.

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Since actor-coproducer Seth Rogen helped to bring Superbad to life, 50/50 might also suggest a sex comedy, except Jonathan Levine's film is more like a drama with comedy sequences (some of which involve sex). In a switch from his Inception smoothie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a strait-laced 27-year-old who works in Seattle public radio with his hedonistic best friend, Rogen's Kyle. Back pain brings Adam to an oncologist who diagnoses cancer, prescribes chemotherapy, and recommends counseling, which leads him to Katie, a doctoral student (Anna Kendrick) who makes up in compassion what she lacks in experience. If Kyle takes the news with good humor, Adam's girlfriend, Rachael (Kendrick's Twilight costar Bryce Dallas Howard), puts on a strained smile, while his mother (Anjelica Huston) goes into freak-out mode. At the hospital, Adam also befriends two cancer patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) who share their foul-mouthed wisdom--along with marijuana-laced macaroons--but Rachael finally cracks, leaving Adam to fend for himself, except that he isn't as defenseless as he thought, which comes in handy when he finds out the chemo isn't working. Will Reiser, who wrote the script, drew from his own experience, and the results ring true, even if he's too hard on Rachael, who sincerely tries to be supportive. In his follow-up to The Wackness, which centered around a congenial dope dealer, Levine treats the other characters with more respect, and avoids the sentimentality that mars most movies about potentially fatal illnesses--plus, it's a lot funnier. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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50/50 [Blu-ray] Reviews

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful

Is cancer funny? As it turns out, it can be..., October 9, 2011

Blythe Dresser (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50/50 [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)

This might just be my new favorite film.

I went to see this, primarily, because I've always loved the previous works of both Joseph Gordon-Levitt as well as Seth Rogen. The premise, a young man is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and tries to cope with it through humor, was appealing too. On a small sidenote: I'm from Vancouver and the majority of the movie was filmed there, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Adam is 27 years old and is shocked when he is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer on his spinal cord. He relies on his hilarious best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen); his unreliable girlfriend, Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard); and his overbearing mother, Diane (Angelica Houston), while he struggles with chemotherapy, doctor's appointments and losing all his hair. His interactions with each of these characters are ultimately hilarious, even when they aren't intended to be. Along the way his doctor sends him to a therapist named Katherine (Anna Kendrick), who... Read more

33 of 36 people found the following review helpful

Exactly the Way It Is, December 7, 2011

carol irvin "carol irvin" (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50/50 (DVD)

I can tell that this was inspired by the true story of screenwriter Will Reiser. He has got every detail down so perfectly that it would either be that or that the man was sharing an esp channel with cancer patients. His protagonist is diagnosed with spinal cancer. This is 27 year old Adam, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He discovers his is a rare form of spinal cancer with 50-50 odds of surviving it. It has not yet metastasized so they will try to shrink it with chemo first and then operate.

Seth Rogen plays his crude, loud, yet amazingly supportive best friend. Touchingly he even sneak reads on the side a book about going through cancer with someone. He provides the perfect foil for Adam.

Adam makes and loses relationships along the treatment way, which is also very normal. Some people are just better at coping with grave illness than others' are and if one has never had to move beyond a certain level of commitment to people, it can be neigh unto... Read more

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful

A Cancer Comedy That Deftly Balances Laughs With Reality In Its Smart And Sophisticated Screenplay, January 19, 2012

K. Harris "Film aficionado" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50/50 (Amazon Instant Video)

Striking the right balance and tone has got to be an incredibly difficult thing to do when you are centering a comedic picture around a serious topic such as cancer. I suppose that's why we see so few cancer comedies--it just isn't a particularly amusing topic. On TV, Showtime has a Laura Linney helmed program called "The Big C" which addresses cancer as its principle theme. That program, however, (despite being beloved by many, so send me your hate mail) has the deck stacked with wacky caricatures and unbelievable situations that make it almost unbearably over-the-top. Maybe that's why "50/50" was an incredible surprise! It's easy to see why its perfectly measured screenplay has won numerous year-end accolades because the story deftly juggles the hilarious with the heartfelt. This is comedy that comes from a very real place with exceedingly believable characters, and yet--it is also surprisingly hard-edged and never devolves into sentimental treacle. In a word, the film's tone is... Read more