"SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK"
Based upon the novel by Matthew Quick
Written For The Screen and Directed by David O. Russell
**** (four stars)
Happy New Year to me!!!!
I'm telling you dear readers, this film completely surprised me and to think, I almost didn't see it. "Silver Linings Playbook" marks a terrific return to form for Writer/Director David O. Russell, a most idiosyncratic talent who has specialized in making films that clash all manner of subject matter together in splendid storytelling and completely unpredictable fashion...usually. I remember being captivated by the bizarre late adolescent angst and incest enhanced dark comedy of Russell's debut feature "Spanking The Monkey" (1994) as well as the sexual screwball farce of of his second feature, "Flirting With Disaster" (1996). But it was with "Three Kings" (1999), Russell's Gulf War themed dark satire/action thriller starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, where David O. Russell completely had me in the palm of his cinematic hands and firmly announced himself as a filmmaker who was going to be fearless with his storytelling and possess an almost magical quality with keeping a collection of seemingly disparate conceptual plates simultaneously spinning in the air.and merging them together seamlessly. Unfortunately, with the entertaining and ambitious yet extremely messy philosophical satire "I Heart Huckabees" (2004) and especially, with the highly acclaimed but for me, completely mediocre and pedestrian drama "The Fighter" (2012), I feared that Russell had lost his unusually sharp creative edge.
The initial trailer I saw for "Silver Linings Playbook" certainly did nothing to encourage me to see it as what I was viewing seemed to be mannered, forced and creatively undisciplined. Furthermore, the presence of Bradley Cooper was not an easy sell for me to say the least, as I have found him, so far, to be less of an actor and more of a good looking guy who just got lucky. Through word of mouth and high critical praise, I ventured out to see "Silver Linings Playbook" and inside of mere moments within the film, I knew unquestionably how wrong I was concerning the talent of Bradley Cooper and the supposed loss of David O. Russell's mojo. "Silver Linings Playbook" is a marvelous film, filled with that electric unpredictability and emotional resonance of David O. Russell's finest work. In fact, I think that not only does "Silver Linings Playbook" stand shoulder to shoulder with "Three Kings," I think it is one of 2012's very best offerings.
As with certain select films that I have reviewed in the past, I feel that perhaps the less I describe, the better the experience and enjoyment of "Silver Linings Playbook" will be for you. Bradley Cooper stars as Pat Solitano Jr., a man suffering from bipolar disorder, who at the beginning of the film is being released from a mental facility, after eight months of treatment, into the care of his parents, Dolores and Patrizio Sr. (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro).
As Pat attempts to piece his life back together, he is soon introduced to the fiery Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence), a friend of friends in the same neighborhood and also suffering from depression and living in the close care of her parents. Once Pat and Tiffany meet during an intimate dinner with friends, and continuously intersect as they each jog through the neighborhood, the two begin to form a tentative and tumultuous relationship. How the story of Pat and Tiffany combines themes of mental illness, sports obsessiveness, gambling, fractured marriages, an emerging romance and even a dance contest are all for you to discover for yourselves!
Please trust me when I exclaim how emotionally honest, difficult, turbulent, and ultimately, life affirming David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" actually turns out to be. That cinematic magician from film's past left me spellbound once again by miraculously merging terrific comedy with a highly perceptive understanding of family and neighborhood dynamics plus the intense devotion found within the culture of sports fans. Additionally, it is yet another film that has rescued romantic comedies and movie love stories from irrelevancy by focusing so intuitively upon...and once more with feeling...how real people behave and feel while in the throes of emotionally realistic situations.
Yet for me, the greatest success of "Silver Linings Playbook" from the storytelling stand point is how David O. Russell treated the themes of mental illness, a topic which so many films have completely failed at depicting time and time again. Just think of films like "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006) and even worse, "Lars and the Real Girl"(2007), movies that treat mental illness as ironically delivered cutesy quirks with characters who solely exist inside of quotation marks and never feel like living, breathing human beings. Most distressing is when films are so afraid of addressing mental illness that they refuse to acknowledge it at all, even when the narrative is urging filmmakers to do the very opposite. A God-awful film like James L. Brooks' "Spanglish" (2004), committed this cinematic crime so shamelessly as that film featured Tea Leoni in a wildly manic performance as a woman who is clearly suffering from mental illness and/or is experiencing a full mental breakdown yet absolutely no one in the movie at any point whatsoever makes mention of it.
Russell never makes that mistake and I deeply appreciated how he never once treated bipolar disorder or depression as any cute cinematic quirk or gimmick designed to create some sickening, cloying sympathy for the leading characters, while also showing them to be emotionally and morally superior to everyone else around them. What Russell achieved was something pretty close to what Jonathan Demme accomplished with his brilliant "Rachel Getting Married" (2008), as Pat and Tiffany exist as deeply flawed characters with wrenching inner pain, who are living with their illnesses within families and a community that entirely defines them by their illnesses. How are either of them able to move forwards within their minds and lives if every single person around them keep throwing their past transgressions in their faces, constantly rooting them to the very spot of their failings? To that end, I loved how Pat's sense of optimism and fervent desire to find the silver linings in life was not due to any "pie in the sky" romanticism. It is optimism as a means of absolute survival.
To my gobsmacked surprise, Bradley Cooper is just sensational as Pat. Tightly coiled physically, rapidly delivered speech mannerisms and with eyes that seem to be forever seeking for absolution and peace, he fully embodies an individual desperately attempting to live beyond his ailments and failings with the hopes of finding a positive future. Jennifer Lawrence, as I may have mentioned in my review of "The Hunger Games" last year, is the real deal. She is the film's firecracker, creating a vibrant heartbeat with Cooper. She constantly keeps Pat (and the audience) off guard through her forcefulness, directness and occasional wrath yet she instantly draws us into her own private pain and ferocious determinations so completely. And yes...ahem...I also have to mention that the camera just loves her!
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence each give rich performances and achieve a fresh on-screen romantic chemistry that feels so urgent, so capable of imploding at any moment despite their best wishes that you root for the two of them to attain some sense of happiness in any way possible. Russell utilizes some fine poetic moments through their courtship as many scenes between them are conducted with the two either running or dancing. Yet, when the two are in moments of stillness, the emotions become even more unpredictable and potentially damaging are these are people who exist without filters, therefore creating a combative sense of communication as every moment is so emotionally raw and without any sense of romantic game playing. If this element was a sly commentary from David O. Russell as to the state of current romantic comedies and movie love stories, then so be it as I would love to experience more honest, crucial dialogue and interplay in place of the wacky plots and convoluted motivations that have plagued too many films in recent years.
To further compound the successful nature of how Russell captured and presented this theme of mental illness within "Silver Linings Playbook," I must make special mention of Jacki Weaver's performance as Pat's Mother and Patrizio Sr.'s wife as she perfectly captured the unshakable love and unending anxiety that occurs when one lives with another (or others) that are mentally ill and/or emotionally crippled. The emotional eggshells upon which she has walked for most of her lifetime has unfortunately never grown easier with the passage of time as outbursts disappointments and eruptions can arrive without warning, provocation and via seemingly innocuous elements like displaced television remote controls, a pop song or a novel's unhappy ending. One standout sequence, scored to Led Zeppelin's "What Is And What Should Never Be" and involving one character's frantic search for a videotape, was an emotional powerhouse for all of the characters involved (as well as the audience). But through it all, I urge you to keep watching Weaver and you will see an older woman's turmoil with her lot in life combined permanently with her determination to keep her family together. She is a quiet boulder of strength throughout the film. And I must say what a pleasure it was to see Robert De Niro not lazily coasting upon his immense screen legend and eliciting a fully engaged performance once again.
2012 was a year where, as far as I am concerned, romantic comedies and movie love stories experienced a bit of a rebirth as film after film spoke to the truth of love and romance and engaged my heart in ways it has not been engaged for many, many years. David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" is one of the very best while also presenting great empathy and creative fearlessness in regards to the depiction of living with mental illness.
Granted, and without spoilers, I am certain that for a film so left of center, it may be odd for some of you to see it end up where it does and how it does. But, as I think about it, for a film with such richly developed characters deeply hoping to find that bright spot of life, that safest of places, that location where everything is understood and accepted unconditionally, I would not have wanted it any other way.
Welcome back, Mr. Russell. You have definitely been missed.
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