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50/50, 500 days of summer, adam sandler, angelica huston, anna kendrick, blog, bromance, bryce dallas howard, cancer, chemo, cruella de vil, dexter, dramedy, funny people, humor, inception, jonathan levine, joseph gordon levitt, noga arikha, patrick swayze, seth rogan, the help
“Spinal Trap”
REVIEW: “50/50”
Grade: B+ (RENT IT)
CANCER AND COMEDY aren’t as incompatible as one might think. For centuries doctors worked from the assumption that the human body was comprised of four humors: phlegm, yellow and black bile, and blood. What’s called the humoural model (from fluid, or humon, in Greek and humor in Latin) dominated from the fifth century BC, with the work of Hippocrates, to the early twentieth century, the vestiges of which are now understood in terms of moods and temperament. “English-speakers still have to humor the whims of a temperamental colleague,” writes Noga Arikha, author of Passions and Tempers: A History of The Humours, or “face a Monday with ill-humor, and remain good-humored throughout the week.”
But what about facing a stage-four spinal tumor with a sense of humor? That’s the challenge facing Adam and indeed the larger dramedy based on his existential ordeal called “50/50.” Joseph Gordon-Levitt [“(500) Days of Summer,” “Inception”] plays Adam, a radio producer in Seattle, in a script by Will Reiser who himself battled and beat spinal cancer. Adam gets by, and high, with a little help from his friends, chiefly Kyle (a sly and slimmer Seth Rogan), his hospital-appointed therapist (Anna Kendrick of “Up in the Air”) and smothery mother (an underused Angelica Huston). When Adam informs her of his diagnosis over dinner, Huston shoots back: “I’m moving in.”
The film’s first frames feature Adam following all the rules: at 27, he exercises and patiently jogs in place at crosswalks while waiting for the light to change. He’s smitten with girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) who, as an abstract artist, fills his apartment with ugly canvases and worse, arrives an hour late at the hospital to pick him up. Reprising her turn as Cruella de Vil in “The Help,” Howard tries her darndest to breathe life into a flat character in a film really about the bonds between men.
The emotional core of “50/50,” after all, lies in that fine bromance between Adam and Kyle. Friends don’t let friends drive themselves to chemo. And friends certainly don’t let friends shave their own heads, nor miss the opportunity to corral girls into sympathy sex. “50/50!” exclaims Kyle, “If you were a casino game, you’d have the best odds. And lots of people beat cancer. That guy from ‘Dexter’ and Patrick Swayze.” “Swayze?” Adam retorts, “That guy is dead.” “Really?” Kyle backtracks, “Well, don’t think about him.”
Rogan’s casualness as a comic actor makes him instantly likable, and citing “night-blindness” as a reason to share Adam’s cancer-pot, he also reprises a role already seen on screen: 2009’s “Funny People” in which there, too, he nurses a terminal Adam Sandler back to life and laughter. Directed by Jonathan Levine, “50/50” has none of that inferior film’s acerbic nihilism. Instead, and in large part because of Levitt’s tenderness – listen for his larynx-shattering howl on the eve of a crucial surgery – “50/50” keeps its head high in the face of despair. There’s a term for that tactic, by the way; it’s called “gallows humor.”
Cancer Sucks so Blog for a Cure:
My “Bromance” review (“Funny People,” “The Hangover,” and “I Love You, Man”) from the _GLR_:
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/’Bromance’+Flix+and+the+State+of+Dudedom.-a0216644249
Colin Carman 
Mixing humor and painful subject matter is, naturally, very difficult. The beauty of this movie is that it does so with ease, especially with such good actors in these roles as well. Good review Colin. Check out my review when you get a chance.
Hello Colin – I’m just stumbling around after reading some of Dan The Man’s work and I ended here. I don’t make the ’rounds’ so to speak as much as I’d like so every once in a while I start with someplace familiar and follow comments to see where they end up. I caught your thoughts about 50/50 from Dan, which actually started at Supermassive Black Hole.
I read your article at the library. I really like “too puerile to be poignant”, which gets at not only the depiction of relationships between men in movies but also the inability to express the complexity of same sex themes in general. Personally, I’m not a fan of ‘bromance’ any more than the term ‘chic flic’, or for that matter genre classifications all together. I find the MPAA rating system out of touch and ineffective, especially with a lot of action films rated PG13 for extreme carnage as acceptable replacement for intimacy and sexuality. I can’t help but recall the last Transformers movie with devastation at a thousand-miles-an-hour but not so much as a bed cover turned over.
I’m curious what you think of Funny People? I reviewed it at Above The Line with mixed reactions from my readers and others. Hope to see you around. Cheers->
Boy are you right about the hypocrisy of the movie-rating system; I can’t abide the TRANSFORMERS franchise but yes, devastating indeed!
I’m really looking forward to seeing this! Cancer is the only topic that I’m conservative about but this looks like it will deal with it well. Does look like a rental though!
It’s very entertaining and heartfelt; I only pick RENT IT versus SEE IT because of the ol’ mighty dollar, believing that only “big” movies, in the CGI or cultural sense, must be seen and paid for in full…so that’s my rationale!