Great Performances In A Story Of No Great Note

Rating: 3/10 (12 May 2013)

Bradley Cooper is wonderful. About that there can be no argument. He captured the character and the essence of Pat Solitano perfectly. Solitano is recently released from a psychiatric hospital, suffering bipolar disorder and after having beaten up the man he found in the shower with his wife. Released at the insistence of his mother (Jackie Weaver) and against the advice of doctors, Pat has to try to rebuild his life, coping with a none too normal family of his own (including a mildly OCD Philadelphia Eagles fanatic father, played by Robert De Niro.) His fantasy upon release is to win back his wife, who's taken out a restraining order against him. Attempting to reconnect, he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) - a somewhat promiscuous widow who agrees to carry letters between Pat and his wife, who is an acquaintance of hers. Meanwhile, Pat and Tiffany discover a shared love of dance. Pat thinks that doing well in a dance competition will show his wife that he's back to normal. That's the movie is a nutshell. And I have to say that I don't get the hype. It did very little for me.
Yes. It features good performances. Cooper, Weaver, De Niro and Lawrence are all quite good. But they really can't turn the basic story into anything more than what it is - a completely predictable couple of hours that features absolutely no surprise in the end, and that seems far too easily to solve all of Pat and Tiffany's personal challenges. Sure it's mildly humorous at times. Pat going jogging while wearing a garbage bag as a vest made me smile - the first time I saw it. By the 35th time (or whatever) it was just a part of the movie and drew no response.
My biggest beef with this I think was the way it started. There was no real exploration of the character or his past. Yes, that gets revealed as the movie goes on, but somehow I would have liked just a little more of an introduction. Instead, all we got was Pat's mom showing up at the psych hospital and demanding that he be released. I wanted to know a little more about this guy before getting into the rest of the story.
Sure, it has good performances from pretty much everyone. but the basic story disappoints.