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88Like another recent feel-good film about the disease, Gus Van Sant's "Restless," it creates a comforting myth. That's one of the things movies are good for.
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75There is a wealth of authenticity in the feel of the movie, as if Levine and/or his writer have endured some of this stuff.
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75It succeeds mostly thanks to stellar work by the wonderful Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who capably handles the dramatic heavy lifting, and Seth Rogen, who delivers big laughs as his raunchy bud.
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88A movie handled with this kind of care is a rare gift. Refusing to hide from pain or bow to it, 50/50 makes its own rules. It'll get to you.
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75Just as essential is Seth Rogen, as Adam's best friend. Rogen isn't even 30 yet, but he is already an important actor - not just because he's popular but because he best embodies this particular comic moment.
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83The result is a duet of outstanding loveliness between Kendrick and Gordon-Levitt, also an actor of nuanced control.
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63Kendrick gives a truly bad performance here - she's a self-conscious actress playing a self-conscious person and getting her signals all mixed up - and it's unclear whether she has been hung out to dry by her director or if it's just that the character makes no sense whatsoever.
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70As a comedy about a young man with cancer, it needs to be serious enough to be real as well as light enough to be funny. Though it falls off the wagon at times, it maintains its balance remarkably well.
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60The best parts are the in-between ones, neither laugh-out-loud funny nor overtly heart-wrenching.
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100Every performance in the film is flawless.
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80Like many other comedies about serious matters, 50/50 grows more dramatic in its second half. What really impressed me, though, was how easily Reiser could pivot back to comedy at a moment's notice without seeming cheap.
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75The filmmakers do everything they can to balance levity and leavening. The subject says "drama," and the three supporting women deliver well-shaded, understated performances. (Howard shows us how weakness can be just as destructive as malice.)
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67The film's predictability dampens its best parts. Having decided to make a movie about a dreaded subject, the filmmakers too often retreat into the comfort zone of easy assurances and flip quips.
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75Ideally cast as Reiser's stand-in, Joseph Gordon-Levitt digs into a character role that also gives him a chance to show off the comedic chops he developed during his years on "3rd Rock From The Sun."
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88Even hardened cynics will embrace the cliché – yep, you will laugh, you will cry.
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75Some of it's schematic and on the nose. But the grace notes are what make 50/50 better than simply "good enough."
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75It's half hilarious, half serious; all poignant.
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70Reiser has written his characters with an indelible sweetness and vulnerability, which allows the cast to deliver performances with some depth.
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88Considering that any one of those elements could have scuttled its fragile mix of drama, comedy and life-and-death stakes, 50/50 beats the odds with modest, utterly winning ease.
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50A feel-good and slightly bad comedy-drama about a young man's fight against cancer, aims to put a tear in your eye and a sob in your throat, if not for long.
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8050/50 pulls no punches in its depiction of living day-to-day with illness. There's pain and fear, no question. But this dramatic comedy is also warm, honest and, most especially, funny.
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50All these roles could have been found at a garage sale of comedy stereotypes. To the extent that 50/50 works, it is because of Gordon-Levitt, one of my favorite actors.
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70The movie belongs to Gordon-ÂLevitt and Anna Kendrick as his painfully green therapist.
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8850/50 is crude and funny, and it demands that you laugh. And you will.
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89Mostly it's just terribly funny and sad and beautifully acted and terrifically feel-good for being, you know, a cancer comedy.
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75This affable comedy is a healthy alternative to tearjerkers.
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70Buoyant and observant, 50/50 is a small winner; the director, Jonathan Levine ("The Wackness"), has a great touch, mordant but light-handed.
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60The story is an autobiographical one from screenwriter Will Reiser's own ordeal; you smile with the thought that he had such women in his life, tough yet supportive, giving him the license to be funny again.
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10050/50 is a tremendous movie. It's also a really funny one, which doesn't mean it won't make you cry.
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83Thanks to a slew of engaging performances and a script that finds the sweet spot between crass and curdled, it's a winner.
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60Will Reiser's semiautobiographical script initially prescribes too artificial a story treatment for its characters but is rescued by a genial, low-key vibe that builds in sensitivity and emotion up through the final reels.
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75Odds are you'll find something of substance, a few life lessons in between the laughs in 50/50.
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100It's irreverent about cancer and that could be inspirational. And it's surely one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen all year.
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25Artificial, irresponsible, filthy and forgettable, it knocks itself cross-eyed trying to make you roar with laughter at chemotherapy, with the nauseating Seth Rogen milking most of the yuks. But a stoner comedy about cancer? I don't think so.
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75The picture could be so much better than it is, and yet it's also the kind of movie that makes you want to grade on the curve, adding extra points for good intentions.
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80As the comedy in 50/50 turns darker, Gordon-Levitt, who's maybe the most natural, least affected actor of his generation, makes prickly plenty engaging.
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60Scene by scene, 50/50 can be both amusing and moving, with the tightly wound Gordon-Levitt and the boundaryless Rogen forming an oddly complementary pair. But as a whole the movie never quite coheres, seeming to skitter away at the last minute from both full-body laughter and full-body sobs.
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70What ensues is "Beaches" meets "Pineapple Express." Which, I've got to tell you, is pretty much what living with cancer is like.
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80Whether you're after a comedy-drama about cancer or a Rogen laugh-fest with added heart, this does a remarkable job of balancing the odds. And the laughter/tears split? Call it 70/30.
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Sep 27, 201160Although it veers maudlin in its final act - 50/50 mostly succeeds as a movie about a young man fighting cancer that doesn't give in to sap or sentiment.
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Sep 27, 201163The movie is far more successful in its execution of the young-man-meets-mortality element, warranting its existence by bringing some well-considered verisimilitude to what feels like rare movie territory.
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Sep 14, 201160A soft and sweet cancer drama that hits with the force of an ill-timed hug.