Before I begin I must warn you that it is impossible for me to review this movie without spoiling the movie. So much of what I feel towards the movie spawns from what happens towards the end and it is impossible not to talk about it. So, if you do not want the movie spoiled for you let the following be your review and then go away: Silver Linings Playbook has awesome performances and is worth seeing, but should have stuck a better landing in the end.
Pat Solitano(Bradley Cooper)is just getting out of a stint in a mental institution, but only he and his mother think it is time for him to get out. He went in for beating a man to near death after discovering this other man in the shower with Pat's wife. Up until that point Pat had been living his life with an un-diagnosed bi-polar condition. He gets out of the mental institution with one goal: get his wife back. he has this new found positive attitude that he calls "Excelsior." He is always looking for the Silver Lining in every situation. To get his wife back he has to get in shape, calm down, open up and he has to read all of the books she will be teaching to her high school students. Unfortunately for Pat things get complicated. First off, his bi-polar condition refuses to go away and he has these manic fits and because he has a restraining order out against him, a cop is never too far away. Pat has no verbal filter and offends most people, but things get infinitely more complicated when he meets Tiffany(Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany lost her husband recently and probably suffers from a few mental disorders herself. In order to process her husband's death she slept with a whole bunch of people. pat and Tiffany become friends and Tiffany tells Pat she could pass a letter to his estranged wife, if he helps her enter a dance contest. Pat does not like the idea, but he agrees to it, much to the chagrin of his OCD father (Robert De Niro). Pat's dad, an avid gambler, wants Pat to be home for Eagles' games because he believes Pat is good luck. As the film goes on all of these little worlds collide into one big night.
Silver Linings Playbook fires on all cylinders for 85% to 90% of the film. I found Cooper to be completely mesmerizing and he proved he can absolutely hang with the big boys in terms of A-list actors. I have been saying for years that I felt he was going to cross over into prestige pictures and he really handles his business here. His Pat is all over the place in the right kind of ways and he effortlessly handles Pat's manic episodes, whether they be fits of anger, sadness or both. His interactions with all of the characters are well crafted and he has an easy and sexy chemistry with Lawrence. Lawrence is probably the most solid or complete performance because Tiffany is an endlessly fascinating character. She too is fighting disorders and she is manipulative, but sweet in a way and Lawrence, at the young age of 23 is completely up for the challenge. I found their climatic dance sequence to be utterly charming, funny, whimsical and even sexy. De Niro reminds everyone that he is still an actor to be reckoned with. He is not in your face or scary the way De Niro characters often are, no he is subtle and almost too calm for the most part, but he is all together memorable. The interactions from the whole cast help keep this movie elevated beyond a script that could use to refining.
I have always enjoyed David O. Russell movies because he gets incredible performances out of his actors. I am never sure if I love him as a director because he makes weird story choices, or weird screenplay choices, but he definitely knows how to pull great performances out of actors and this is no different. Who else was going to give Cooper a chance to really prove he could act and not just be that pretty douchebag in every film. However, Russell makes a really bad choice with this movie that basically causes the movie to crumble under the weight of itself. Towards the end of the picture, Pat realizes he loves Tiffany and that he is fine with letting things go with his wife. The minute Pat realizes this, all of his mental disorders vanish and Pat turns into suave Bradley Cooper the Movie Star. Now, I have had conversations with 4 or 5 people about this, some in depth, some which need to be revisited for more depth and it bugs some people and some people do not care. I have issues with it and it really hurts the overall film. Now this is not really about showing mental disorders in a true light, although the movie does that so well for so long, but it just seems completely out of character for Pat to suddenly turn. He was un-diagnosed for so long, but from conversations we gather that he was always dealing with issues, but the minute he realizes he loves Tiffany, he is filled with this calm? I get that love can do many strange and wonderful things, but the realization of this love comes at a time of high stress, and with Pat we learn that high stress only elevates his disorder.
What stress? Well, he has to perform a dance with Tiffany in front of a huge crowd, including professional dancers AND they have to get an average score of 5 because his OCD gambler addict dad bet his entire life's savings on them getting a 5. The Eagles also had to win because of the Parlay bet. Now, if your mental illness was triggered immensely by stress, your entire family fortune being on your shoulders would without question be stressful, but the movie sidesteps that the second Pat puts on a nice suit. Russell completely abandons Pat's character, what made him volatile, but weirdly charming. He becomes the man who sweeps girls off their feet, not the guy who asks inappropriate questions, wears a trash bag over his body for his jogs, and questions everything. Look I get it, if a girl could cure a mental disorder, that girl would be Jennifer Lawrence, but the movie loses a punch at the end by completely succumbing to the Romantic Comedy ideal that love truly can make everything and everyone better.
That being said, the performances are so good it still ended up in my top 10. The 90% of the movie that works, really works. I loved all of the character interactions until the end. I found Cooper and Lawrence to be totally worthy of all of the praise being heaped at them and I did not even mind the story taking off in that cliche "everything happens in the same night" thing, because this family is totally screwed up and they absolutely would bet on insane stuff like a dance competition. I found the movie to be funny, sad, sexy, relatable and down right hard to watch at times because of how the disorder manifested. I thought the music was excellent and the camera work, while basic, to be effective. I enjoyed Chris Tucker and Julia Stiles in supporting type roles and I wanted to just unabashedly love Silver Linings Playbook, but they just messed it up in the end.
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