Near-brilliant mixture of personal journey, family dynamics, and romance...a cinematic gift

Rating: 8/10 (17 February 2013)

Director David O. Russell also adapted this winning screenplay from Matthew Quick's novel about a young man from Philadelphia at a crossroads in his life; just out of a mental institution and living with his parents, he's determined to reconcile with his estranged wife while staying off medication and keeping a new, positive outlook in order to rebuild his world. Mercurial, chatty, funny, intimately-felt and acted comedy-drama could well be Russell's most commercial enterprise yet, though one which still contains enough prickly edges to make the shifts in tone both wonderfully erratic and unpredictable. The opening scenes are broadly drawn, however the characters are a likable group, and Russell does a terrific job at sweeping the audience up into this amusing and volatile scenario (with recognizable dialogue and behavior reverberating throughout). The cast is uniformly excellent, and Russell (as both director and writer) never drops the ball, keeping his pace lively right down to the wire. ***1/2 from ****