Silver Linings Playbook

Oscars watch: I'm going to do something that I don't think I've ever done (despite that I love the Oscars), which is attempting to watch all ten nominated films for Best Picture. I was never able to watch them all, even when there were five nominees. And so, as you can see, when the Academy changed the rules in 2009, it has become rather challenging. This screw-ball comedy-drama is the second of the nominees that I've seen (I previously reviewed Argo).

“Excelsior” is Pat’s (Bradley Cooper) motto for getting his life back together. After eight months in a mental institution, Pat’s mother Dolores (Jacki Weaver) has obtained an approved court order for his release, despite the hospital’s request to keep him for further treatment. Pat arrives home and reunites with his father, Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro). Uninformed of his release, Pat Sr. is surprised by his son’s return – Pat enters the family home, noticing that his framed portrait is set aside on the floor, while his brother’s portrait is still hanging proudly on the wall. Prior to his treatment for bi-polar, Pat was a high school teacher, and his life fell apart when he found his wife in the shower with another colleague of theirs. But Pat is ready to take control of his life. He’s physically fit, positive, and determined to win his estrange wife back by reading the recommended novels in her high school syllabus (which includes Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms) – “Excelsior!”. But since his return home, Pat has a slight mishap at his therapist’s office when Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” is playing in the waiting room – which was their wedding song, and the trigger to Pat’s mental breakdowns. Despite Pat’s eagerness to resume a normal life, his new therapist, Dr. Cliff Patel (Anupam Kher), thinks there’s still a lot of recovering to be done. Pat keeps fit by jogging around the neighbourhood. He runs as if he’s sheading his problems away, and he wears a garbage bag over his work-out clothes to keep the sweat off, but he wears it like a badge that signifies how messed-up his life is. On one of his runs, he bumps into an old friend, Ronnie (John Ortiz), and his pecking wife ,Veronica (Julia Stiles), who invites him over for dinner. At this dinner, it is obvious that Ronnie is setting him up with his sister-in-law, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a young widow who recently lost her job. Tiffany epitomises a lost soul – wearing a black dress, black eye make-up, black nail-polish, as well as a solemn expression on her pretty face. But this lonely, angelic lady has got quite a mouth on her, and this intimidates Pat, but he is intrigued by her.

There have been many romantic-comedies and melodramas that have followed this mould: Boy meets girl, they don’t get along but they must because something keeps tying them together, they constantly challenge each other through their nuanced sexual chemistry, and then somewhere along the way they realise they’re attracted to each other. Many rom-coms have failed to reinvigorate this classic storyline, but few have achieved it (e.g. As Good As It Gets and Jerry Maguire), and Silver Linings Playbook (based on a novel by Matthew Quick) is one of those hopeful, character driven rom-coms. This is an odd little film about two broken people who find each other and mend each other. It sounds corny, but it’s a lovely story with crazy, lovable characters.

Jennifer Lawrence is charismatic as the tough but vulnerable Tiffany, who helps Pat find structure in his life through her passion for dance. Bradley Cooper is exhilarating as the heart-broken Pat. Robert DeNiro is terrific as the sports-crazed, overly-superstitious father. And Jacki Weaver is wonderful as the adoring matriarch who diligently maintains the family’s sanity.

The chemistry between Lawrence and Cooper is charming, but it’s the bond between Cooper and DeNiro that’s delightful. When Pat arrives home to his father, there is an awkward moment between them that’s so bitter-sweet that you can sense the distance between. But as we get to know them, it turns out father and son are very much alike, and are writhing to be within reach of each other. It seems as though Pat Jr. got the angry gene from Pat Sr. who is a crazed Philadelphia Eagles fan (and was banished from the Eagles stadium for beating up patrons), and believes that Pat is the saviour of the Eagles “juju” – Senior thinks Junior is a good luck charm as well as his Eagles cloth which he holds onto whilst watching the games on TV. But, of course, this doesn’t sit well with Tiffany, who needs Pat’s time and partnership to fulfil her ambition to compete in a dancing competition, which was a done deal in exchange for helping Pat communicate with his wife (who has a restraining order against him).

This is certainly a zany film with an unusual blend of themes: Mental illness, grief, sports and dancing. However, director David O. Russell blends these themes well. His previous film, 2010’s The Fighter, was a fascinating drama which also had the theme of a crazy family possessed by sport. And what is successful about the outlandish characters in The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook is how well-controlled they are. Russell does dysfunctional family aptly. There is a good balance for these zany characters who encompass humour and sombreness that Russell manages to measure well. A great scene that establishes this is when Pat and Tiffany have their dinner date at the local diner. He orders cereal and she orders tea. She opens up to him and he screws it up – it’s an electrifying scene. Furthermore, the camera movements throughout this film work beautifully around the actors, particularly the handheld camera shots and the fast-paced editing which progresses well with Pat’s manic behaviour.

I would also like to mention that it’s refreshing to see Chris Tucker in something other than the Rush Hour films (he hasn’t done any other films since 1997 with The Fifth Element). Tucker plays Danny, Pat’s best friend at the institution, who tends to unlawfully dismiss himself from the hospital to visit Pat. Tucker’s presence is endearing and surprising as Danny, an equally lost soul who left a murky life of drug abuse, and wants to fit into Pat’s nurturing world.

You’d be living under rock if you didn’t know that romantic-comedies generally veer to female audiences. It’s a genre that tends to make men reluctant. A genre that men are forced to watch with their wives and girlfriends. But Silver Linings Playbook is no sappy, unwitty melodrama that usually stars rom-com victims Kate Hudson and a shirtless Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Aniston and her male co-stars who have all been rumoured to be dating her off-screen, or Katherine Heigl and some poor chap. 

All men who quiver at the words, “romantic comedy”, should give this hopeful one a shot. Come on, guys. Excelsior!