What an awful mess!!

Rating: 1/10 (6 October 2015)

I really wanted to like this movie, but unfortunately it turned out to be an awful mess. At the beginning Cooper does a good job at portraying Pat, a bipolar guy who just got out of mental hospital, is obsessed by his ex-wife and struggles to go back to normal life. ******Attention: SPOILERS ahead.*******
He meets Tiffany who too is a bipolar and nymphomaniac. Unfortunately, Lawrence's rendition of Tiffany consists in wearing the same sulky/angry expression all through the movie. Plus, the casting of Lawrence is totally wrong since she is a model-type (I think a "girl next door" type would have been a better choice).
While in any other movie (or in real life) Tiffany would have hundreds of men courting her, here she falls for Pat and even gets to the point of chasing him while he goes jogging (first truly ridiculous scene). Despite her beauty, he doesn't seem too impressed with her, not even when she gives him lectures about life while doing what seems a very sexy yoga poses with her buttocks well in sight.
Pat's parents don't like Tiffany but then there's this big scene (so ridiculous it's involuntarily comic): at some point, she starts listing the scores of some football team and then the miracle happens! They look at her in amazement and suddenly start to like her (!). At this point, if you had given the movie a little chance, you realize it's a joke and just want to reach the exit of the cinema.
But, wait! There's more: the dance competition scene! The two train to take part into the competition and right when you thought they were getting together, Pat meets his ex-wife (and by this time you have come to dislike Tiffany so much that you hope for some surprise ending and that he will get together with his ex-wife). At the end of the dancing scene, poor Tiffany is left alone and wanders in the street like a soaked kitten but – surprise surprise! – Pat realizes he's actually in love with Tiffany, they kiss passionately and live happily ever after.
If I should sum up this movie in a single word, it would be "ridiculous". It deals with a sensitive issue like mental illness in a very superficial way and it constantly swings between drama and comedy, but it seems to head nowhere. The real low point is Lawrence who has a China doll face but lacks the depth and insight that her character requires; she can't express one single feeling (how she won an Oscar Award for this role is beyond me). I can't believe De Niro accepted to play in this mess, either.