Beautifully acted, but difficult to believe

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2013)

This is the kind of film that the Academy love and regularly shower with awards come Oscar season. Silver Linings Playbook is a story of love triumphing over mental illness that sees excellent performances across the board, but, as is the norm with these types of films, the 'serious' subject matter glosses over the cracks in the story's believability, and the happy ending rather waters down the seriousness of bipolar disorder, resulting in a somewhat insulting message that love can somehow cure mental illness. But David O. Russell, the former indie pioneer who's now a regular Oscar-botherer, is a good director, and with it's many flaws aside, Silver Linings is a funny, quite moving picture.
After being released early from a mental institution, Pat (Bradley Cooper), a man brimming with anger and who has bipolar disorder, tries to win back the wife that has taken a restraining order out on him. He has a new positive outlook on life, but is still quick to anger, throwing a book through a window because he doesn't like the ending. His parents (Jacki Weaver and Robert De Niro) try to support him but find it difficult to cope. He meets the equally unstable Tiffany (the beautiful Jennifer Lawrence), and the two make a deal. She will get a letter to his wife as long as he becomes her dance partner in an upcoming contest.
Russell's back catalogue shows his unique eye for comedy. I Heart Huckabees (2004) was a bizarre existential comedy full of oddball characters that really worked, and Three Kings (1999), his breakthrough, managed to squeeze many laughs out of a war-torn setting. Silver Linings Playbook is more comedy than drama, but the laughs are few and far between. De Niro is the real comic relief in the movie, but his OCD, Philadelphia Eagles-obsessed father isn't believable. In fact, the whole family setting asks a lot of the audience. For a film so seemingly grounded in reality (it takes the washed-out, shaky camera approach), the supporting characters just aren't real.
It works best when its two leads are together. The movie really depends on the chemistry between Pat and Tiffany, and they do sparkle in their scenes. It's rare that a movie makes me want characters to get together, but in the moments when they dance, you can feel the connection, and you want Pat to forget his estranged wife and open his eyes to what's in front of him. Cooper brings a likability to a occasionally despicable character, but Lawrence steals the film. Tiffany is a force of nature, damaged by the death of her husband and now finds herself labelled a slut after many a one-night stand. With Lawrence at the helm, it's impossible not to fall in love with her.
The rom-com clichés are followed very much to the T, with eccentric minor characters that somehow all end up in the same place at the end, the will-they-or-won't-they climax, but it does them well. It also avoids any real upsets in Pat and Tiffany's journey, instead opting for a much more light-hearted, easy-going approach. But, like Pat says, isn't their enough f*****g misery in the world already? Maybe he's right, but I feel the movie took an easy path opposed to a more serious study of the effects of mental illness.
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