MESSAGE IN THE MOVIES

50/50   Rated R

Directed by Jonathan Levine.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen.

Photo: Summit Entertainment
Movie Review by Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

50/50 is a sweet (if occasionally raunchy) comedy that is having a hard time finding a theater audience due to its subtext of cancer.  I am sure that once this gets released on DVD and Blu-ray, word will hit the streets that this film isn’t that much different than other Seth Rogen comedies and that it is actually quite entertaining.

In television interviews, the filmmakers have made a big deal about how hard it was to make a humorous film about cancer, but I have observed that many folks who live with cancer often find humor, along with faith in God, to be a powerful source of comfort and strength. 

The screenwriter, Will Reiser, is a cancer survivor as well as a successful comedy writer, so the script is informed with knowledge about the disease as well as amusing comedy bits written to play to Seth Rogen’s familiar persona as the potty-mouthed best friend. 

The movie has most of the stuff you’d find in any R-rated comedy pitched to young hipsters: sex talk and hooking up, drug use, and awkward moments.  But the main story is about how Adam (Gordon-Levitt) will deal with his cancer diagnosis and follow-up treatments and surgery.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a fine actor and strikes all of the right sympathetic notes.

It is a good thing that Adam has Kyle (Rogen) as a best friend, because the film surrounds him with people who are less than helpful, including a self-absorbed girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), a suffocating mother (Angelica Huston), a doctor with terrible communication skills (Andrew Airlie) and an awkward therapist-in-training (Anna Kendrick).  The film, in its own simple way, shows how you can rise above all kinds of adversity if you are open to the people who can help you.  Adam finds real kinship with two older men in the chemotherapy room (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, both very good), who are willing to accept mortality in a way that Adam cannot. And Kyle is a faithful friend through it all.

God and religion are not mentioned much in this film, but grace abides. Most of all, 50/50 celebrates the power of friendship.  It is a good thing to be a brother or sister in Christ; it is a better thing to be a trustworthy friend. All of us travel this journey from birth to death to eternity.  If God is for us, who can be against us? And if we are also there for each other, even better.

Pitchfork/Halo Ratings:

Three halos A unique addition to the bromance genre, with cancer playing a leading role, that is also perceptive and compassionate.

Three pitchforks: Pervasive swearing and crude language; a couple of brief scenes of sexual activity; much medicinal drug usage.

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