The Minority Report - "50/50" (2011)

“50/50” does its name justice. It is a brilliant balance of humor and complete sadness. It does what most movies can't—capture the essence of life and how, in tragedy, there is great pain and yet someone can still find glistening hope and, yes, still laugh. It is a tale of pushing through hard times with the support of family and friends, finding out who you really are, and discovering the true character of the people around you. It can easily be said that this is one of the best movies of the year and should definitely be watched.

Do you remember the Adam sandier film "Funny People"? It tried to create a sense of juxtaposition between sadness and comedy—a dramedy, so to speak. But it failed miserably with a piss poor passing, a hard to love main character, and a multitude of other issues. It is almost as if “50/50” took all the mistakes of that film and reversed them. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a character who anyone can easily relate to; he is not in your face, and plays back on acting. He is a normal 27 year old, unsure of where he is and wants to be in life and is trying to figure everything out, but in this tempest, he finds out he has a rare form of cancer. The story follows him through the slow realization that cancer has highs of optimism and lows of hopelessness. It is a complicated affair and shows just how severely an occurrence like this can take a toll on a person. Seth Rogen plays his best friend, who at times can be hard to like, but at others melts your heart with his charm and humor. Anna Kendrick also has what is possibly her best acting debut to date, as an inexperienced psychologist that accompanies Gordon-Levitt throughout his emotional rollercoaster.

Cancer can inspire a multitude of effects. It can leave an individual weak and hopeless. Near death can truly bring out who you really are, but it also causes ripples of emotions to the ones around you. This is what this movie is about. Sure, the main character is suffering from an illness, but it is a true observation on how an illness can make the others around you sick, and how to rise above everything even if faced with death, and look towards life and live. In short, I laughed, I cried, and came out of the theater still bogged with the feelings the movie inspired in me. This movie is not like watching paint dry.


By V-Dawg