Whenever I have some free time I enjoy sitting comfy on my bed and watching a good movie. That doesn’t happen very often so if there is a movie to be seen, it has to be a good one.
Usually my significant other choses these films. He has the patience to browse through them and choose. Usualy he chooses badly (people shooting and beating the crap out of eachother is not realy my type of movie) but from time to time he finds something that catches my attention.
50/50 is a movie appeared this year in september. It’s about a boy, Adam, who at 27 only years old finds out the one thing every one of us hopes not to: he has cancer.
Adam Lerner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a simple young man living with his girlfriend, Rachel (Bryce Dallas Howard). His mother, Diane Lerner (Anjelica Huston) already has so much to cope with: Adam’s father (Serge Houde) suffers from Alzheimer’s disease so she has to watch him 24/7.
Adam goes to work every day along with his co-worker and best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen). Kyle makes fun of him when he complains about some back pains but when Adam decides to finally go see a doctor, the jokes stop. Turns out Adam suffers from a very rare type of cancer, malignant schwannoma, and there are very poor chances of survival: 50/50.
Finding out one has cancer is hard for everyone around. Adam gives his girlfriend a chance to “bail”, but she assures him that she’ll be by his side and help as much as she can. His parents find out about the news over dinner. Adams father doesn’t understand, his Alzheimer’s is at a high stage but his mother is devastated, as you can imagine.
Adam needs to undergo chemotherapy, which is not realy a piece of cake and he also choses to see the hospital’s psychologist, Katie McCay (played by Anna Kendrick). She is a very inexperienced therapist but in time, she manages to get Adam’s attention and tries her best to help him cope with all this.
With all these problems around him, later on, Adam has another surprise coming up. Now, when he needs his girlfriend the most, she decides to cheat on him under the pretext that the stress is to high. As expected, they broke up and from now on the only one who tries his best to help Adam is his best friend, Kyle.
Even if Kyle seems to be immature, he does the best he can to make Adam feel normal and keep his hopes up. In these kind of situations you see who your real friends are and Adam is lucky enough to have one.
Meanwhile, his tumor kept on growing and seems like chemotherapy does nothing for him. He needs to undergo surgery immediately is he wants to have a chance. His parents and best firend should be the ones devastated but seems like his therapist is also more worried than she should be.
Making the decision is hard. We have to make choices everyday, what to eat for dinner, which jacket to buy or whatever other choices we make everyday, but none of them are about life or death. A young boy who had his whole life ahead of him has to make a choice between life and death. He could die in a few months or on the operating table. He could also survive either way, the chances exist even if they are small.
Adam is forced to choose and he does.
The ending I leave for you to see and even if this is an overrated subject in movies or tv series, it’s worth watching. It shows how you can find out who your real friends are, how you can overcome everything with them by your side and how, even in dark times, you can continue to have a positive atitude and enjoy life how you can because there’s not much else you can do.
