Who knew cancer could be so entertaining?

Rating: Null/10 (26 October 2011)

Fat Man is now a big fat Texan. I saw this at my local THIRTY-PLEX. Thirty screens! Big ones too. It's Texas after all.
Anything can be a comedy these days, even (supposedly) movies about sewing people stem to stern. The subject matter didn't really give me pause, it was more the nature of the film – quirky indie comedy/drama with wide release, mostly unknown writer and director, Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen. I do love Joseph Gordon-Levitt and he was the driving force for looking past all these other items. Funny thing was, it did play out like a great indie film and both the knowns and unknowns performed marvelously. I'll get in to that in another paragraph.
The movie starts with cautious, nice-guy Adam (Gordon-Levitt) going through the daily gyrations (or not) with girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and best friend Kyle (Rogen). His persistent back pain turns out to be cancer and makes every hypochondriac in the audience squirm in their seat. After that, there's not a lot of action but lots of self-doubt, poor behavior, and crying and crying and crying. I won't ruin the ending, but it's a little bit of a cliff-hanger to the end. Other than some of the oddities, there's nothing particularly outstanding about the story other than the nicely crafted dialog.
I didn't hate Anna Kendrick (Katherine) nearly as much as I thought. She wasn't so. herself in this movie, thanks goodness. Same for Seth Rogen. After the mess of Green Hornet, I realized he's like a lot of actors – they need direction. Give him the right words, and he's amazing. Let him write them and it's really not the same. Speaking of, Will Reiser's script was great. He crafted each character to be consistent, show some growth, and act like a real person. By the end of the movie, you really care about what's going to happen to Adam, you think his girlfriend is a waste of meat, and this whole situation just sucks. Reiser also managed to finish the film strongly. Most movies can be great for the first 2/3, but fall flat in the last act. The emotions continue to build as Adam goes through the stages of dealing with cancer. Maybe it was the fact that this story already had a real life ending, but Reiser definitely had a goal in mind when the film started.
Jonathan Levine has come a long way from All the Boys Love Mandy Lane and really impressed me with 50/50. While some of the acting is less than convincing, the story, characters, and technical aspects made it very enjoyable.