Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a young broadcaster for NPR in Seattle. He’s dating Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) and best friends with good nature but crude Kyle (Seth Rogen). Adam has a strained relationship with his mom (Anjelica Huston) and his Dad who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. But everything suddenly comes caving in when Adam is told by the doctor that he has a very rare form of cancer of the spine. The film takes us through Adam’s life dealing with the disease, and how it affects everyone around him.

This is an interesting film. Based on a true story of writer Will Reiser who was diagnosed with cancer, and with Seth Rogen as his friend, beat the disease and under Seth’s urging wrote the script. So it’s very realistic because it’s written by the one who lived it. A lot of the misadventures in the screenplay are based on the real experiences Will went through. It has a lot of humor! How a movie about cancer can be funny is odd, but it really is. Seth Rogen does his gross out dialog that he’s famous for, so the R rating is mostly for the words that come out of Seth’s mouth! He’s so inappropriate, it’s hysterical.

There is a lot about the deterioration of Adam and Rachel’s relationship. Anna Kendrick plays a very young psychologist who tries to council Adam, and there are undertones of how much they like each other, even though it’s a doctor patient relationship. Then there’s the issues with Adam and his Mother. But the primary focus of the film is always the buddy film relationship between Adam and Kyle. After all, this is primarily Seth Rogen’s film.

Not exactly stellar, but very unique. It’s a very humorous look at something that is very serious. There are plenty of scenes that will make you cringe and look away, but it’s so light-hearted about it that makes it not a sad or depressing story. Very well written, and so it’s certainly watch watching.

==Written by Ed Goettman ==

==From: Ed's Review Dot Com (www.edsreview.com)==

Since actor-coproducer Seth Rogen helped to bring Superbad to life, 50/50 might also suggest a sex comedy, except Jonathan Levine's film is more like a drama with comedy sequences (some of which involve sex). In a switch from his Inception smoothie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a strait-laced 27-year-old who works in Seattle public radio with his hedonistic best friend, Rogen's Kyle. Back pain brings Adam to an oncologist who diagnoses cancer, prescribes chemotherapy, and recommends counseling, which leads him to Katie, a doctoral student (Anna Kendrick) who makes up in compassion what she lacks in experience. If Kyle takes the news with good humor, Adam's girlfriend, Rachael (Kendrick's Twilight costar Bryce Dallas Howard), puts on a strained smile, while his mother (Anjelica Huston) goes into freak-out mode. At the hospital, Adam also befriends two cancer patients (Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer) who share their foul-mouthed wisdom--along with marijuana-laced macaroons--but Rachael finally cracks, leaving Adam to fend for himself, except that he isn't as defenseless as he thought, which comes in handy when he finds out the chemo isn't working. Will Reiser, who wrote the script, drew from his own experience, and the results ring true, even if he's too hard on Rachael, who sincerely tries to be supportive. In his follow-up to The Wackness, which centered around a congenial dope dealer, Levine treats the other characters with more respect, and avoids the sentimentality that mars most movies about potentially fatal illnesses--plus, it's a lot funnier. --Kathleen C. Fennessy