Truth be told, I was initially disappointed that this was the first movie up in the queue for this feature. It isn't a matter of enjoying it. As it's part of this feature, it is a movie I really like. However, it just wasn't one of the movies I wanted to write about.
Watching again, I remembered exactly why it's in my pantheon. It's often funny, while occasionally painful. The performances from both the main characters and several supporting characters are pretty good. Most of all, it feels pretty real.
I say 'feels' instead of 'is' because I've never directly gone through the situation in this movie. Perhaps people who have gone through similar situations would disagree with the accuracy or tone of the film. I'd imagine the experience of dealing with such a traumatic, painful, and downright awful illness like cancer is a very singular experience, even if there are certainly similar situations they all go through. I would expect there would be some real experience brought to the movie, considering it was loosely based on the life of writer Will Reiser*.
Above all, the part of the movie that feels the most genuine is the main character's mother, played by the great Anjelica Huston. I'm not certain how my mother would react to a situation like that, but it would be pretty close to how she acts. Her character could have been played completely for easy laughs ("haw-haw, mom's be worrying and embarrassing us, amiright"), but she's not. She's a person, with her own fears, needs, and wants, and a big part of Joseph Gordon Levitt's character growth is realizing this.
Another great thing is that Levitt is not treated as a saint because he has a life threatening illness. He gets high with his chemo compatriots (the great Matt Frewer and the even greater Philip Baker Hall), he breaks up with his terrible girlfriend**, and has trouble getting it up when his pal hooks him up with a rebound girl. He doesn't ever come to some tranquil peace with his situation before the climatic surgery, and in fact never gets much beyond the anger stage.
Fortunately, the movie ends on a happy note, as Levitt survives the surgery that saved his life, he gets the girl, and Seth Rogen daub salve into his friends hideous back scar. It's a sweet victory because it feels earned. For that, I'm glad to consider it one of my favorite movies.
Up Next: Burn After Reading, then The Wrong Guy, and then our first challenger Good Night and Good Luck
*Seth Rogen, a friend of Reiser, was basically playing a fictionalized version of himself. Yes, I know he plays himself in everything he's in, but at least he does it very well in this film.
**In the span of about a year, Bryce Dallas Howard played a girlfriend that cheated on a person with cancer in this film and a awful racist queen bee in The Help. To be fair, the girlfriend character she played wasn't exactly played off as evil, just a very flawed young person who was too inexperienced to take the out she was given. At least she didn't eat a poop filled pie in this one.
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