50/50

Normally, the cover blurb "from the guys who brought you Superbad" wouldn't turn me on to a movie.  But this one sounded promising, so I gave it a shot.  It has the crude humor of Superbad but speaks to a wholly different coming of age type of story.

Meet 27-year-old Adam, played by Uncertainty's Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  He likes his job, has a girlfriend, a faithful best friend, and seems to have a good life.  Then he's diagnosed with rare type of cancer, a tumor on his spine.  Chemotherapy doesn't shrink the tumor, so he has to have surgery.  Along the journey of treatment, he learns about family, friendship, and life.

Adam's not to excited about being only his therapist's third patient.

The best thing about 50/50, which makes the movie believable and moving, is that the writer, Will Reiser, wrote from his own experience with cancer.  The result is an honest and surprisingly moving and thought-provoking account of the effects of cancer on the patient as well as on those whose lives bump against his.

I saw this quote in Bob Hoose's review on PluggedIn.com, which describes how I feel about putting such a potentially great movie under the cover of a foul language filled sex comedy:

The lowball dross seriously cheapens the powerful statements they set out to make. The truth is, if you have something that's cinematic gold and you cover it with a layer or two of filth, nobody can see the value lurking underneath. And if they discover it accidentally, they're still going to be left longing for a good scrub brush and a hose.

Bring on the scrub brush!  But besides all that, still,

Bottom line, 3 stars.