Here's one movie that's worth subscribing your medication for

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2013)

I think I've officially gone crazy for "Silver Linings Playbook", David O. Russell's romantic dramedy about breaking through mentality, gaining your own perspective about life and to also find a brand new start even when it's least expected. Lucky thing about this movie, it is funny and heart-wrenching at times, it's also intelligent about the characters who goes through these real issues at certain moments and there's also some harrowing moments in which our hero and heroine deeply explore themselves and go even further, exposing their own vulnerabilities in the process. Based on the best-selling book by Matthew Quick, "Silver Linings Playbook" follows Pat Solatano (Bradley Cooper), a man suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder who was fired from his job as a high school teacher and spent 8 months in a mental hospital in Baltimore after he beats up the history teacher who was caught having sex in the shower with Pat's (EX)wife, Nikki. He comes back home to Philadelphia in order to get himself fit so he can reunite with her, even though she has a restraining order on him. He has a dad (the great Robert De Niro), an Eagles fan and local sports gambler who is quite forceful on him and a mom (a superior Jacki Weaver) who just wants things to be normal. Along the way, here arrives Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence, yes, that Jennifer Lawrence from "The Hunger Games"), a young girl who also has issues after the loss of her police-officer husband. He spots her when his friend Ronnie (John Ortiz) and his wife Veronica (Julia Stiles) invited him to dinner. Tiffany has already been known as "the crazy slut with a dead husband", she likes Pat so much, she even offers to sleep with him. He refuses, stating that he's still faithful to Nikki. So what does these two characters do? He wants to send a letter to Nikki, she wants him as her partner for a dance contest in exchange for that. When the two get to know each other more and more due to the training for the dance contest, their feelings grow stronger for each other. It's kind of a small miracle that "Silver Linings Playbook" doesn't fall prey to the romantic comedy playbook, it unexpectedly makes up its own rules. We understand that each of the characters is just like us and it makes room to balance the melodrama, humor and heart of something like this. Now that's something special. What David O. Russell does as a director and a screenwriter is that he knows the characters are not perfect people, but they are real people including Pat's psychiatrist Dr. Patel (Anupam Kher) and Pat's friend from the mental hospital, Danny (Chris Tucker). What makes the film works and the real reason to see the film is the cast. It's amazing to me that Bradley Cooper, who I liked in movies like "The Hangover" films and "Limitless", gives without a doubt the best performance of his career. As Pat, Cooper goes all the way developing his happy-joy qualities as well as a dark side. When he breaks down emotionally, you certainly feel his pain of what's he done. Jennifer Lawrence has become one of the best young actresses we've seen in years. Here, she delivers another brilliant and fearless performance and she could possibly get an Oscar for best actress, maybe. She was 21 when this movie was shot, but quickly proves that age is nothing but a number as she plays a woman who may be a floozy, but she likes herself for who she is and she doesn't want people to berate her for that. Robert De Niro definitely gives one of his best performances ever since his Oscar-Winning performance in "Raging Bull" as Pat, Sr. He certainly captures the emotion, excitement, and the forceful will of teaching Pat how to live and don't give up, but also keep a look out for the next Eagles game. The rest of the cast, especially Weaver, Tucker and Kher, they have their great moments and God bless them for it. So what if this movie ends like any other romantic comedy? It adds more unexpected surprises that no one would ever witness, even the ending has that in spades. "Silver Linings Playbook" is truly a movie you won't forget and the silver lining is this: We've gone crazy sometimes. Have you?