Excelsior! Cooper & Lawrence's scary/good intense chemistry is worth the ticket price alone; one of the year's best.

Rating: 10/10 (18 November 2012)

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012) **** Bradley Cooper Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, John Ortiz, Julia Stiles, Dash Mihok, Anupam Kher, Brea Bee. Cooper gives a superlative career high best turn as a recently released mental patient whose near-breakdown spurs him to come up with a 'game plan' to get his estranged, unfaithful wife (Bee) back and re-enforcing his family ties with his bettor father (De Niro, in a comeback return to form) and loving mother (wonderful Weaver) with one major new element to his tenacious life - the younger sister-in-law (an incredible Lawrence) of his supportive friend (Ortiz) , whose own unsteadiness remains to be balanced. Heartbreaking at times this best realized account of mental health pic cum life affirming dramedy is the best of its kind since ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST which doesn't coddle or push away its underpinnings for self-help and self-discovery. Thanks to impressively focused acting (Cooper should seriously get an Oscar nod as well as the aforementioned leads), a somewhat loosey-goosey direction by David O. Russell (who adapted loosely form Matthew Quick's novel) and emotional clarity that has been neglected for some time from the medium of film. The give- and-take friendship/relationship between the laser-beam intensity of Cooper and the wild- card desperation-bubbling-under-the-surface of scary/good Lawrence is truly worth the price of admission. One of the year's best films. Period.