Directed by: David O. Russell
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert DeNiro
Plot: An unstable man comes home to try and work out his issues.
Review:
Pat (Bradley Cooper) was an undiagnosed manic depressive sentenced to 8 months of psychiatric evaluation at a mental facility after beating up a man who was having an affair with his wife. After the required 8 months, he comes home to live with his mother and father, Delores and Pat Sr. (Jackie Weaver and Robert DeNiro). He spends most of his time running and reading the books that his ex-wife taught her students because those were always her biggest complaints: that he should lose weight and be more interested in what she is interested in. Because of a restraining order, he isn’t allowed to contact her, so he ends up spending time with a neighborhood girl, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany promises to get a letter to Pat’s wife, if Pat agrees to be her dance partner for a competition coming up. Tiffany is without a partner because her husband recently died, and she empathizes with Pat because she is also having a really hard time coping with it. Every now and then, he gets a visit from his institutionalized buddy, Danny (Chris Tucker in his first Rush Hour role in quite a while).
This is an unconventional love story that actually has quite a bit of convention in it. It’s kind of a strange experience since the conventions do not ever feel overly cliché. They are earned. For instance, Bradley Cooper spends a lot of the movie freaking out. He yells and gets into a frenzy about stupid things like the ending of a Hemingway novel or acting out when he hears his wedding song being played. Those scenes are high-energy, dialog-heavy, and in lesser hands would be full of scene-chewing. Cooper makes it much more digestible. It is like watching Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk. You can see him teetering on the edge of anger and madness just waiting to give in as well as the man trying so hard not to fall over. Cooper has this quiet combination of shame and sadness that buys his ability to go off his rocker occasionally.
Bradley Cooper, Jackie Weaver, and Chris Tucker
He has great chemistry with the rest of the cast, especially Robert DeNiro and Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence’s Tiffany sees a kindred spirit in Pat. They both lost their spouses (although hers was taken from her), and they both could have handled it a lot better. They both went down a road full of self-destruction. Where Pat turned to violence and anger, she turned to sex and sadness. Lawrence has a few outbursts, but the more time the two of them spend together, they become much less angry. Their personalities get steadier as they grow together but never less awkward to hysterical proportions.
DeNiro was really great too. He has been having a hell of a year between this, Being Flynn, and Red Lights. While the quality of the films is arguable, we have been getting much more classic DeNiro performances. He is also the essential element of what the film seemed to be trying to convey: that everyone is a little crazy. So many supporting characters are shown to have tiny defects with the psyche, much of which is connected to sports fandom. DeNiro’s character has quite a bit of OCD. He would be great in one those Bud Light commercials. The one where they say “It’s only dumb, if it doesn’t work.” He has his special handkerchief and he positions the remote controls just right, and he desperately wants his son by his side for the games to ensure the “juju” is going in the right direction. It is a direction that never really goes anywhere, even though it seems like it is just on the horizon of getting a nice bow on top. I think it was better that it was never explained or resolved. It worked as a great catalyst for character moments than some big preachy ending moment.
Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in her home made dance studio
Silver Linings Playbook is kind of like The Perks of Being a Wallflower as far as how optimistic it looks at the world. There is so much cynicism in the world, much of which gets expressed in film more than any other, it is nice to see a little optimism especially some that is as well-written and acted as this one.
Rating: 9/10
