50/50

50/50 (2011) is about a man diagnosed with cancer at twenty seven, and it was written by someone who actually went through it. He goes to a doctor with back pain. It turns out to be a rare tumour and the doctor puts his odds of survival at fifty percent. He cannot absorb it; he does not know how to tell anyone, his mother panics, his girlfriend cannot carry it, and his friend Kyle turns the whole thing into material. Will Reiser wrote it. Reiser received the same diagnosis in his twenties and went through the treatment. His closest friend at the time was Seth Rogen, who plays more or less himself in the film. The friendship on screen is not invented. The best decision is refusing to weep over the cancer. The humour is merciless and crude; the two friends keep making jokes about it because they cannot talk about it any other way. The hardest scene is before the operation. He accepts for the first time that he might die, and all the humour drains out. Anjelica Huston plays the mother and does the strongest work in the film in a few scenes. Joseph Gordon-Levitt had his head shaved for real on set and that take could only be done once. It runs 100 minutes. Good for: films about cancer that refuse sentimentality, and stories about friendship. Less good for: it may be hard if the subject is close, and the humour is coarse.