Product Description
-------------------
Life doesn't always go according to plan. Pat Solatano (Bradley
Cooper) has lost everything -- his house, his job, and his wife.
He now finds himself living back with his mother (Jacki Weaver)
and her (Robert DeNiro) after spending eight months is a state
institution on a plea bargain. Pat is determined to rebuild his
life, remain positive and reunite with his wife, despite the
challenging circumstances of their separation. All Pat's parents
want is for him to get back on his feet-and to share their
family's obsession with the Philadelphia Eagles football team.
When Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a mysterious girl
with problems of her own, things get complicated. Tiffany offers
to help Pat reconnect with his wife, but only if he'll do
something very important for her in return. As their deal plays
out, an unexpected bond begins to form between them, and silver
linings appear in both of their lives.
.com
----
In lesser hands than director David O. Russell, Silver Linings
Playbook could have been a typically cringe-inducing throwaway
Hollywood rom-com. As it is, this unusual and deeply affecting
story of crazy love is a bold observation about the joys and
tragedy of life lived by deeply flawed characters facing triumph
and adversity against a backdrop of painfully familiar family
dysfunction. It's also a tremendous achievement in formal
structure, with a flair for storytelling that's as moving as it
is delightful. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, an until-recently
undiagnosed bipolar person who's just home from a lengthy stay in
a mental institution and doing his darnedest to get his head and
his life back on track. His concerned parents, vividly embodied
by Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, have plenty of troubles of
their own when they warily take him in and tiptoe around the
eggshells of a psyche that still veers wildly from seeming
self-control to y bouts of mania. Pat has a plan to win back
the unfaithful wife whose restraining order is still in force
because of the violent episode that sent him away after he nearly
killed her lover. Interjected into this wobbly family scenario is
Tiffany, a friend of a friend who is embroiled in her own turmoil
of mental instability following the recent death of her husband.
Jennifer Lawrence is a charming revelation as Tiffany, flexing
sensitive acting muscles that are as toned as her lithe form. She
throws herself into the role of a depressed, promiscuous young
woman who needs Pat in her life about as much as she needs
another personal tornado to rip her apart. But the movie
magically reveals that these two disturbed souls have a destiny
that's never really in doubt; although the whirlwind turns the
movie takes to get them there are often breathtaking. Russell
liberally adapted the movie from Matthew Quick's 2008 novel, and
he deftly imbues the story with a vibrant sense of place
(suburban, blue-collar Philadelphia) and each character, no
matter how tangential to Pat and Tiffany's journey, with quirks
and nuances that brilliantly reveal their essence. The subject of
mental illness has rarely been portrayed with such honesty and
candid respect. Constantly keeping us off guard, Silver Linings
Playbook soars from darkness to a kind of screwball comedy that
is as tender and touching as it is unpredictable. There are
several tour-de-force moments that Russell constructs with the
surest hand of direction, dialogue, and the talents of his cast.
A key scene unfolds in a small living room where eight people are
crammed together, each adding important pieces to the whole, and
which thrums with a masterfully rhythmic pace. Another sequence
follows the buildup to one of Pat's manic outbursts with a
dizzying and increasingly stressful manifestation of the madness
careening around in his head. It seems hard to believe that a
love story with real humor, real pain, and genuine resonance that
gets from point A to point B--it begins with a lone figure
mumbling to himself and ends with a jubilantly staged ballroom
dance--can succeed with so few missteps. But Silver Linings
Playbook turns it all into an absorbing reality wherein life
stumbles heartwarmingly toward what real love is all about. --Ted
Fry