50/50 (2011)

This movie is billed as a comedy, and there are definitely laugh out loud moments, all of them attributable to Seth Rogan--no surprise there. But it is essentially a very serious story told by a man who faced his own mortality in his mid-20's and retained a sense of humor about the ordeal. Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a writer for Seattle public radio. He has some nagging back pain, which he seeks care for and finds out that he has a neuro-fibroma-sarcoma-schwannoma. Not only is it a mouthful to say, no one knows what it means, but when he looks it up on the internet, he finds out that at best his chances are 50:50. His girlfriend is initially supportive, but a few too many nights of vomiting after chemo, and she is sleeping with someone else. She stays out of pity and guilt, and when Adam's best friend Kyle reveals her true colors, he kicks her out. She did get him a rescued greyhound, which was a good move, because the dog is definitely a comfort to him as he slogs through chemo--which doesn't work, and he needs to have surgery as his last chance at cure. Throughout the experience he is in therapy--with Katherine (Anna Kendrick), who he quickly susses out to be a rank amateur, and gets her to admit that he is her third patient ever. She makes every mistake i the book--including getting personally involved with him--so not a good example of therapy and what it can do, but a good source of hope for Adam. The mom is Angelica Houston and she is not a particularly sympathetic character here, but as the parent of a childhood cancer survivor, I did feel her pain. There were several tear jerking moments, but I have reason to be hit hard by them--others might sail right through them unscathed, but this is about the most uplifting movie about cancer that you could ever see.