50/50 Movie Review
100% a good film.
I have been looking forward to this film. I am a Joseph Gorden-Levitt fan ever since he was on 3rd Rock From the Sun and thought he was excellent in Inception. Seth Rogan I enjoy a love/hate relationship with; love for Superbad and Pineapple Express, hate for his active participation in the cinema abortion known as the Green Hornet (Knocked Up I have mixed feelings about. Good in parts, but possibly a case study in the worst relationship in human history). Anna Kendrick I don’t have a real opinion about, although I liked her in this one. She still carries the stink of Twilight about her, however.
So last night I went and was not disappointed. The story was real, with some funny moments and a lot of scary, depressing moments. I was honestly touched at several points, and while I hate admitting I am becoming more girl-like as I get older actually felt myself tearing up at a few moments (some people might call that maturing emotionally, but I refuse to walk down that path). What was cool was the emotional response was honest, sincere, and built up over time, not the hamhanded “let’s kill the one character you like in the movie” approach I suffered through in One Day. The director (Jonathan Levine, who has done nothing I have heard of but whom I expect to see a lot more from) and writer (Will Reiser, who’s only real credit seems to be the Allie G Show) managed to make the audience connect with every character on the screen, but most closely with Adam, the protagonist. You really end up identifying with him and his situation, and I spent the last 30 minutes of the movie praying that he wouldn’t die.
I don’t know who to lay the laurels on for this one. Honestly, I really think it was a near perfect storm of great acting, directing, and story writing that led to such a good experience. Of course, the last film I saw before this was Taylor Lautner’s lamentable and horribly misnamed Abduction, so it could be that the part of my brain responsible for movie appreciation has taken one too many hits to the head. This film was like a man dying of thirst finding a full water cooler in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Anyway, the story is of Adam, a young Seattle urbanite who, in spite of his extremely cautious and healthy lifestyle, develops a rare form of cancer on his spine. His best friend is Kyle (Seth Rogan), a lackadaisical, unhealthy slacker. The story goes through the drama of Adam dealing with his selfish and self centered cheating girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard, the hot blind girl from the Village, but she also played in Spiderman 3, Terminator Salvation, and the Lady in the Water, so she doesn’t exactly have a great filmography) who is super hot but such a reprehensible person you want to cheer when Adam boots her out. He has to also deal with his extremely engaging worrywart mother (Angelica Houston, looking better than I have seen in years), his Alzheimer father (real trend towards Alzheimer dad’s this year), and his own emotional stress and stages as he goes through the suffering of chemotherapy and eventually surgery. He is aided by the very young councilor in training Katherine (Anna Kendrick) who comes to play a bigger part in his life, but his rock throughout the movie is his friendship with Kyle. Kyle shows what true friendship is about. I don’t want to give this one any spoilers as I expect you all to see it, but when you do look for the scene where Adam finds the book and you will know where I really started to tear up.
The stars. Extremely well acted. Two stars. Good story, if somewhat linear and kind of predicable, at least in parts. Two stars. Some really funny moments. One star. It managed to pry a real emotional response out of my cold, dead heart (odds are it will have most of you crying like a little baby, so macho am I). One star. Anna Kendrick was looking heartbreakingly cute throughout the movie, and can actually act. One star. The Adam shaving his head scene was really fun and cool. One star. All the interactions between the characters, especially Adam and Kyle, were extremely real. One star. A generally good movie experience. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
However, as any of you who have read a few of these knows, the movies without any black holes are extremely few and far between (and for the record, they are The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner Directors Cut, TWOK, and Fight Club. Boba Fett image courtesy of the Star Wars t shirts category), and this movie is not one of them. First of all, the trailers I saw made this movie look about 10 times funnier than it actually was. I know, how much can they do with cancer, but still there were some great lines in the trailers that got cut out of the film entirely. One black hole. While well written, a careful analysis of the story shows a decent percentage of cliche-sium. One black hole. Finally, again while the movie was overall great, the shift in tone from humorous buddy movie to emotional tear jerker was jarring at times. I’m not sure how they could have gotten around that, but still. One black hole. Total: three black holes.
Total of eight stars, and I do highly recommend this film. If you can convince a girl to go on a date with you it is a great date flick. See it in the theater in order to support good movies, but honestly you won’t miss much if you wait to see it at home. In fact, this might be the perfect movie night at home date movie, if you know what I mean.
Thanks as always for reading. I think tomorrow I will see Dream House even though it looks like it will creep me the hell out. Actaully, if I can find it nearby I want to see Machinegun Preacher. On the other hand, if my movie partner joins me tomorrow I will probably have to see something tamer, like I Don’t Know How She Does it or What’s Your Number. God save me. Anyway, follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
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