Silver Linings Playbook

Leonard Cohen once wrote, “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” In his new film, Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell focuses on the process of finding the light through the eyes of two people living on the edges of sanity. Pat is a former history teacher, recently discharged from a mental institution and living with his football fanatic father and mother. His mood swings and pining over his ex-wife are subdued when he comes across someone as equally unhinged as him. Enter Tiffany, a young widow who finds solace in sex and dancing and manages to strike a roller-coaster of a friendship with Pat. There unhinged emotions and attitude are a match made in Freudian heaven as they express their mental wounds through dancing and non-filtered dialogue.

David O. Russell is no stranger to looking at dysfunctional families if you look at his previous work; from the incestuous Spanking the Monkey, the existential I (Heart) Huckabees, and the Oedipal boxing match that is The Fighter. In Silver Linings Playbook, he combines the raw, mentally straining look at working-class families in a similar manner that John Cassavetes did with A Woman Under the Influence. Russell’s dialogue, based on Matthew Quick’s novel, is raw, funny, and poignant and is expressed by a brilliant cast.

Bradley Cooper gives an incredible performance as Pat as his emotions bob and weave through every breath of dialogue and idiosyncratic movement, which is a sigh of relief after the slew of unbearable films he has worked on in the past three years. Jennifer Lawrence is a hybrid of Audrey Hepburn and Gena Rowlands as she delivers an unforgettable performance as Tiffany. Only 22, she has managed to deliver a slew of amazing performances from Winter’s Bone to The Hunger Games. Robert De Niro gives his best performance in almost twenty years as Pat’s father, a Philadelphia Eagles fan who tries to bond with his son.

In addition to the leading actors, the supporting cast was equally superb. John Ortiz (Jack Goes Boating) is funny and charming as Pat’s heartfelt friend who confides in Pat over the frustration of his marriage. Chris Tucker gives an unforgettable performance as Danny, Pat’s friend from the mental institution, who adds the humor amidst the bleakness in Pat’s life. Despite the film ending as an atypical romantic-comedy, it is the performances by Cooper, Lawrence, and De Niro that make Silver Linings Playbook a pleasure to watch.                

Three out of Four Stars