The title of this film, which refers to the survival rate of young protagonist Adam Lerner’s cancer, is also somewhat unfortunately appropriate for another reason. It’s kind of half one movie, half another. It’s written by Seth Rogan buddy Will Reiser, based on a very similar experience with cancer by Reiser himself. So one half of the film, the “cancer half”, is filled with poignant and insightful little moments of truth: the blurring of sight and sound when he first hears the word “cancer”, the over-bearing mother, the awkward therapist sessions with a 24-year old doctorate candidate. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great in this role, and makes these moments really land firm.
The other part of the film, though, is the “Seth Rogan comedy” part. That’s not to mean that the other half is all actually Seth Rogan (who is indeed in the film). I mean that the Seth Rogan-type comedy, of casual and constant sex/weed-based vulgarity, is the other half of the film. Director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness) seems to struggle with marrying these two types of films into one. There’s nothing wrong with the Rogan comedies. Superbad was hilarious. Apatow has made Rogan comedy mainstream, but it doesn’t always feel like it fits here. There are two halves of a film, and each on its own could be pretty good. But the two parts don’t add up to a whole. The result isn’t a bad film - it actually got me drawn up in it by the end, for the most part due to Levitt’s performance and Reiser’s personal script - but you can see a disjointedness in it that makes you think, “Gee, this could have been that much better.”
