First things first. Vancouver, we see you. We know you aren’t Seattle. We see your Grouse Mountain, we see your rows upon rows of blue-glass future-condos. The jig is up. It’s time for you to filmically impersonate a different city. Try Portland. We hate them.

’50/50′ mostly works, and that’s no small feat. A healthy young man’s surprise cancer diagnosis and subsequent attempts to get sex is a tough pitch for a mainstream studio comedy. Somehow, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt manages to make the unfortunate protagonist soulful and bewildered without making him tragic.

As a movie about cancer, it’s refreshingly effervescent and loose. As a comedy, it’s a little rickety but it gets across the finish line. If I had a real objection it would be that Seth Rogen’s parts sometimes seem a little tacked on. I dig the idea that our protag has a stoner buddy who awkwardly tries to keep his spirits up, but sometimes it feels like they’re struggling against a laugh-per-minute meter.

It’s a far superior meditation on mortality to “Funny People”, the other film that the Apatow camp turned out about a quite similar situation. Perfectly honorable rental, especially if you like to play “spot the Canadian everything”.