Silver Linings
Playbook
(USA, 122 min.)
Written and directed by David O. Russell
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro,
Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Anupam Kher, John Ortiz, Julia Stiles.
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| Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook,. an Alliance Films release. |
I am head over heels in love with Silver Linings Playbook. It’s easy to see how this delightful film
won the hearts of audiences at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and
nabbed the coveted People’s Choice Award. I missed Silver Linings Playbook at when it played at TIFF. It was a crowded
festival and word on the strength of the film wasn’t out until the day of its
premiere. (Reviews were held under lock and key, it seems.) Additionally, TIFF
2012 was chock-full of goodies and two films I really wanted to see, Inch’ Allah and Something in the Air, overlapped with Silver Linings. The silver lining of a festival as big as TIFF is
that one can see thirty-five films in ten days and still have two-hundred-odd
films left to see. I’m glad that my fellow TIFF-goers endorsed Silver Linings so strongly, though, and
I would have cast a vote for it myself if I’d seen it then.
Like The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook is a
come-from-behind story full of heart. The underdog of the film is Pat, played
by Bradley Cooper, who displays impressive dramatic range while providing Hangover-grade laughs. Pat is introduced
as an obsessive guy in search of a silver lining. He’s in a mental institution,
recovering from a breakdown that was sparked by his wife’s infidelity. Pat is
always reading signs and creating his own faulty logic, much like his fellow
patient Danny (Chris Tucker), whose conspiracy theories all trace back to his
hair.
Pat is saved from the loony bin by his mother, Dolores (Animal Kingdom’s Jacki Weaver), who
wants to bring her son back home. Pat’s home life isn’t much more stable than
the hospital is, though, with his father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro, who gives
his best performance of the past fifteen years), running a bookmaking operation
that functions on his own obsessive compulsiveness. Some things run in the
family.
Pat’s compulsions return in full force without his doctor’s
supervision. He prattles endlessly throughout the night and jogs in a garbage
bag during the daytime. Pat’s jogging ensemble is one good example of the
film’s ability to charm through simple quirky details. (It’s the little things that
count.) Pat’s bipolar habits are aggravated by his obsession over reuniting
with his ex-wife, Nikki. It’s Pat’s attempt to win back Nikki, however, which
puts him back on the right track.
His biggest enabler is an equally unstable young woman named
Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games). Introduced by a friend at dinner, the recently widowed
Tiffany propositions Pat and then proceeds to slap him in the face. Tiffany is
a hot mess, a tragic wreck with a heart of gold but an unrestrained wild side.
Pat decides to milk his mutual friendship with Tiffany to win Nikki back. In
return, Tiffany enlists Pat to be her partner in an annual dance competition
that her late husband was always too shy to enter.
Cooper and Lawrence are an excellent onscreen duo. Both
actors are current “it” stars of the moment, and each shows a new level of
talent with their comedic energy and dramatic chutzpah. It looks like they’re
both having a lot of fun with the roles, too, (especially in the dance
sequences), so it’s refreshing to see both stars enjoying this big step forward
in their careers. Lawrence is especially good in the saucy role of Tiffany,
displaying a side of her range that we haven’t seen before. The two actors are
an irresistible onscreen couple, particularly since they craft such accessible,
down-to-earth characters.
With a climactic dance number and a love story at its heart,
Silver Linings Playbook might sound
like a candy-coated rom-com of the Katherine Heigl variety. However, with its
roster of humanely flawed characters and its manic OCD energy, Silver Linings Playbook is the ultimate
romantic comedy for people who don’t like romantic comedies. Russell gives
the material just the right edge to undercut the potential sugary feel. Moreover,
the snappy beat of the script is in step with Russell’s idiosyncratic up-close-and-personal
style that uses handheld cameras and POV to hone in on the actors as they
shine. (The ensemble is excellent overall.) Top marks also go to editor Jay
Cassidy, who cuts Silver Linings with
an effortlessly sprightly tempo to match Russell’s beat. By the film’s end,
even viewers like me who usually abhor happy endings will find themselves
exiting the theatre with a sincere stride in their step.
The silver lining about this intense, euphoric film is that
even though Pat is a bit of a nutter, he’s the American everyman that who
rarely finds a place in Hollywood. Thanks to its damaged, but irresistibly
winning characters, Silver Linings
Playbook feels like a throwback to a golden age of comedy, with the energy
of Pat and Tiffany’s relationship calling to mind Billy Wilder’s great American
comedy The Apartment. Just like Jack
Lemmon bowled audiences over by straining spaghetti through a tennis racket for
the lovelorn Shirley MacLaine, Cooper’s final dance with Lawrence is a clincher
for Silver Linings to become an
American classic.
While The Apartment
used the underdog love story to offer a scathing look at American capitalism—the
film is arguably a key precursor to Mad
Men—Silver Linings Playbook takes
the madcap antics of Pat’s bipolarity and Tiffany’s apparent nymphomania to
change the way viewers look at mental illness. Everyone’s a little bit crazy in
Silver Linings Playbook, and the
heart of the film comes from how normal every seems with their respective irks
and quirks. They may not have it all together, but together they have it all.
Rating: ★★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Silver Linings Playbook opens in limited release this Friday.
It opens in Ottawa on
Friday, November 21.
