Film Review : Silver Linings Playbook

Film: Silver Linings Playbook /  Director: David O’Russell
Cast: Shea Whigham, Julia Stiles, Anupam Kher, Taylor Schilling, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Tucker, Jacki Weaver
Rated: R
Distributor: Weinstein Company
Running time: 120 Minutes

Silver Linings Playbook – Predictable but so interestingly enjoyable

Thirty-something Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) has been released from a nearby psychiatric treatment center due to a belated diagnosis of Bipolarism which was discovered during a violent outrage involving Pat walking in on his wife in the shower with another man – Pat responds by almost beating the outsider to death.  During the following eight passing months of treatment, Pat lost his job, marriage and home and is now outside of the clinic’s walls trying to piece his life back together.  

While living with his parents in Philadelphia – the OCD bookie Father Pat Sr., played remarkably and back-on-track by Robert De Niro, and the always-attentive Mother portrayed by Jacki Weaver begin to help Pat mend his life. Daytimes are spent jogging around the neighborhood to lose a few pounds and evenings are spent reading and rekindling his previous friendships with Ronnie (John Ortiz) and his wife Veronica (Julia Stiles) in hopes of regaining ground with his separated wife, Nikki.

But you know what they say about crazies – and sure enough, Pat’s match is introduced to make life interesting. With emotional and psychiatric issues of her own, Veronica’s sister Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) has also returned to her parent’s house to seek refuge in life after her cop-husband was recently killed. Since each character needs something from the other – soon a deal is struck: Tiffany will smuggle a message to Pat’s wife through multiple restraining orders, if he will agree to dance with her at an upcoming competition. 

That’s pretty much the summary of the film’s storyline but the description doesn’t begin to suggest how firmly the film is grounded in true-to-life moments.   

Adapted from the 2008 Matthew Quick novel by the same name, David O. Russell has directed an excellent comedy, which, to the writer’s credit,  should garner at least a Best Adaptation Nominee come Academy voting time. Smart and edgy in nature and filled with some of the best performances of the year, Playbook setups up a typical story of Boy-Meets-Girl in a not-so-typical-fashion. Russell has managed to cement real characters into Playbook to the point that we get the molds breaking at the seem and has done a marvelous job of trusting the actors to take the material and create grounded, real characters who we are pulled into the story by.  

Bradley Cooper easily shows that he has a side far greater than his preceding surface work in The Hangover and A-Team. Playbooks really pulls back the covers and allows Cooper to show his best self in this role. Jennifer Lawerence has done well for herself in having shown that she is capable of pulling off lesser material in a very convincing manner so Playbook really was able to amp up the Winter’s Bone cast member to a nice level- in a nutshell, Lawrence proves that she can stand on her own as a Best Actress plain and simple. But at the end of the day, when the credits roll and the audience leaves the theater, its Robert De Niro who will still be getting the buzz from this film. Every line, glance and moment is spot on and truthful. The veteran actor has been missing from the sight lines of the Academy and voters the past few years due to flat comedy and traditional action roles for an aging actor. However, audiences will find that Silver Linings will single-handedly resurrect De Niro’s character – this is his best performance in decades. 

Overall, Silver Linings Playbook isn’t a life-changing movie and it won’t show you anything you haven’t seen in a film before. In fact, I found the storyline and romance plot all too predictable and over-calculated but the great thing about Playbook is that it will tell you a story about real people with real issues going through an important part of their lives and how they all intersect. This is David O’Russell’s most quirky and tender work to date and this year’s adult comedy that really connects with audiences to the degree that this film isn’t about the people who are cast, its about the characters in the film. By any judgement of the material on screen, there are no Hollywood Celebrities in Silver Lining Playbook – only real people. 

Other Notable Performances: Chris Tucker in a surprising vivid turn as a fellow psych patient, and Jacki Weaver as a devoted Mother and Wife who we would all be so lucky to have take care of us.

~ Matt Miles, Producer of Fresh Roasted Films