Silver Linings Playbook

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2013)

David O. Russell's new movie, Silver Linings Playbook, is completely different from his last, The Fighter, but somehow, both films have the same energy. It's hard to describe, even though that's my job. I guess, if I had to call it something, I'd call it exuberant life, a kind of ecstatic energy that makes you just as excited as the characters in the movie. It's a rare kind of movie that's not only sick with a terribly fascinating disease, but it's also contagious.
Have you ever met someone who's been so down on their luck, so consistently bummed out of a good time, that they get excited the minute they think something's going to work out for them? They almost obsess over it? That's Tiffany and Pat. He's a bipolar teacher, just out of the looney bin- and he's desperate to do one thing- reconnect with his unfaithful wife, who has a restraining order against him for the same reason he was in the looney bin in the first place. Pat beat up his wife's partner in infidelity. Who wouldn't? Walking home to that? However, no dice. Pat gets locked up in the psycho shack. Tiffany, played by a pitch-perfect Jennifer Lawrence, is a young widow who's trying exhaustingly to compensate for the death of her cop husband by screwing, well, everyone.
It's not only a very good film, but it's also a unique film because of the way it tells a light human story in such a hard dramatic way. The most invigorating aspect of Silver Linings Playbook- and there are many- is its masterful script and the actors delivering the well-paced, careful lines. There isn't one or two great performances on display here. There are five.