By Kristin Halsey

What do you do when you’ve done everything right but then it all goes wrong? Suddenly, you find everything about you is starting to affect your family, friends, and, most of all, yourself.

“50/50” tells the story of 27-year-old Adam (Gordon-Levitt), an ordinary, healthy man who lives with his girlfriend Rachael, (Bryce Dallas Howard).

The film is loosely based on the life of Will Reiser, executive producer and writer, who suffered from cancer at a young age.

The movie is worth seeing on many levels.

It does not romanticize the emotions and process of a person with cancer and the toll it takes on friends and family. It plays perfectly to the reality of the situation with all the sadness and acceptance that it takes to live through something like that.

It has a perfect combination of humor and drama within the movie. One moment you are laughing at the jokes and then another moment crying over the darkness of the situation.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt did a very convincing job as the lead character, Adam. Immediately, one is connected to his character and goes on the journey with him. Although his character is fighting the reality of what is happening to him, he shows brief moments of where you see him slowly starting to crack under the stress.

Seth Rogan plays the perfect comic relief to the movie. A relatively minor role, people who can relate to being a friend or family member of a person with cancer will easily relate to the struggle of his character, Kyle.

There seems to be a certain aspect of Rogen’s acting that makes all his characters seem the same no matter the movie.

His usual smart-aleck approach to his characters and the usual constant desire to get laid and pick up girls has not disappeared in this movie.

His “guy-humor” style to the character may not have disappeared, but his ability to show you a glimpse into the more sentimental side of the character towards the end of the film has also not gone away.

The most touching characters outside of the lead seems to be the two cancer patients Mitch and Alan, played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, which he meets in chemotherapy.

Immediately after meeting them, the audience is invested in these two characters and although they play such a small part, you are greatly affected by what happens later in the film.

To those who have had a history themselves or with someone they know with cancer, this movie is easily relatable and worth paying the price of the ticket to see in theaters.

The different levels of coping that anyone goes through with cancer are played perfectly in this film.

The random emotional outbursts, whether it be from medication or anger, the pain and feeling of unfairness within the situation, or even the anti-reaction, seeming so relaxed and okay with it until you hit that breaking point are realistic.

At moments, I found it difficult to watch because it hit too close to home. I saw the audience, and myself, crying at a particular moment when Adam says before he goes into surgery “Mom, you’ll make sure I wake up, right?”

Although I had not cried throughout the film before that moment, this is some variation of a phrase I’ve heard many times before throughout my life.

There are a few different techniques used in filming, and they all flow flawlessly with each other.

The film starts off more bright and cheery but as it progresses, the darker parts of the situation peak through by the filming looking more dull and lifeless. The emotions of the movie are reflected in the filming style.

I would recommend this movie to anyone because it doesn’t relate to just people with cancer, it can relate to just life in general. It’s a film worth the ticket price.