50/50: Critic Reviews

It's the Rogen-Goldberg touch, with the duo's characteristic Superbad mash of the sweet and the bracingly coarse, that sells this unusual downer/upper of a life-and-death comedy.

Neither the actor nor the filmmakers can get under Adam's skin, despite all the close-ups and the moodily shot scenes filled with the kind of movie silence that feels more like the groping of an uncertain screenwriter than of a man facing his mortality.

This film leaves a strange taste in the mouth.

50/50 nimbly draws humor out of a young man's illness, walks a tightrope of tragicomedy and touches on all the right points.

"50/50" takes the hackneyed convention of illness-driven melodrama and reinvigorates it with honesty, clear-eyed compassion and unsentimental wit.

Too pat and contrived to be the Oscar bell-ringer early reports have claimed, "50/50'' is most affecting when it shows callow young dudes struggling to come to terms with the ultimate party crasher.

50/50 mostly succeeds as a movie about a young man fighting cancer that doesn't give in to sap or sentiment.

This nervy film avoids being blatantly "life-affirming" or "feel-good," helping it earn its tears and laughs. The premise covers the first of those. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen merge it with the second.

I admire the audacity of the script, which was written by Will Reiser from personal experience, and I laughed in most of the right places, as people in Adam's life struggle, often absurdly, to say or do the right thing.

Emotionally honest even when it's going for big laughs and filled with lived-in visual detail, it's raunchy and touching without ever being crude or mawkish, a small, sharp comic jewel with a big heart.

Still, it's Gordon-Levitt's choices that continue to impress. Sure, he owned one of the most jaw-dropping sequences in last summer's blockbuster Inception. But the actor remains drawn to profoundly human-scale hurts and quiet triumphs.

...delivers some hard-core truths as well as therapeutic humor while treating more than one kind of death.

What a tightrope this movie is.

A small winner; the director, Jonathan Levine ("The Wackness"), has a great touch, mordant but light-handed.

Although "50/50" is structured with the efficiency of a sitcom, there's an undercurrent of truth and real feeling.

A picture with a commercial sensibility and a quippy streak, yet one honest enough to transcend the usual.

The fear, anger, and despair of terminal illness barely pierce the movie's easygoing vibe, which becomes something of a problem in the second half, but for the most part this is fresh, sincere, and inquisitive.

Levitt, the definition of nuance, is touching, funny, and fierce - an unusual combination of moods, but deeply affecting.

Director Jonathan Levine has the ideal approach to the material, which is to stand aside, frame each scene honestly and let the actors drive the story.

Chances are about 90/10 that you'll enjoy 50/50.

"50/50" is a tremendous movie. It's also a really funny one, which doesn't mean it won't make you cry.

My reaction to everything that happens in 50/50 was "Why don't they just walk out?" But nobody did, so I did it for them.

Will 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.

It 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.

Odds are you'll find something of substance, a few life lessons in between the laughs in "50/50."