You Won't Quite Know How To Feel...And Perhaps That's The Point

Rating: 5/10 (10 March 2017)

While watching "50/50", I had the strange experience of being an "outsider looking in" at the events transpiring on the screen. Having never battled cancer myself, I found it difficult to make any judgement on the actions.
For a basic plot summary, this movie sees a young man (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. As he struggles to cope with the diagnosis & treatment of his disease, he is "helped along" (in a variety of different ways) by a greenhorn therapist (Anna Kendrick), his smothering mother (Anjelica Huston), and his "best bud" (Seth Rogen).
There are times when this movie seems downright ridiculous and seems to veer from any coherent narrative. However, there are also moments that will bring tears to your eyes. It is a very strange flick in that sense.
The reason for the strange-ness? The crazy collection of characters present. Levitt himself proves me than capable of carrying the show, and his relationship with "Kendrick" provides probably the best moments in the film. But then there are the auxiliary cast, who you will alternately hate and appreciate in equal doses. I'm usually a fan of complex characters, but in "50/50" I would actually use the word "uneven" to describe them.
Thus, I have to give this film a middle-of-the-road rating for now (perhaps at some other point in my life I will appreciate it more/less). It's like those personality tests you take in college that ask you to rate something on a "scale of 1-5". When you aren't quite sure how you feel, you give it a three.