The Long Goodbye

Rating: Null/10 (14 January 2014)

Jonathan Levine, director of the very good "The Wackness", directs "50/50". Loosely based on the experiences of screenwriter Will Reiser, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adam, a young man who is diagnosed with cancer.
Much of the film watches as youthful normalcy is slowly and tragically obliterated. Adam relies on support networks, his best friend (Seth Roegan) and the kindness of a counsellor (Anna Kendrick), but nothing seems sufficient. He's spent his entire life trying to be safe and cautious, and now here he is, hit with extinction.
"50/50" dodges most clichés, but indulges in some as well (far too many musical montages). Adam's relationship with Kendrick is cute, but also contrived and ends on a note of creepiness. Elsewhere Seth Rogen's character has little chemistry with Adam, a young man whose sensitive disposition seems at odds with Rogen's frat-boy bluster. At the same time, Rogen's presence lends the film an original tone: a mix between weepy melodrama and teen stoner comedy. Angelica Huston is fine as Adam's mother; she lends gravity to some of the film's best sequences.
7/10 – See "Ikiru".