SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012)

Romcom is such a done-to-death genre. A director would have to be crazy to do it. He’d have to be crazier still to make a romcom about a crazy guy. And he’d  have to be batshit crazy to make a romcom where if you look closely, just about every character is a nutjob. David. O Russell is just that kind of crazy. Oh and yeah, he’s also a fucking genius. SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the best comedy I saw in 2012 and one of the best romcoms I have seen in quite some time, a fluid effortless entertainer, a glorious throwback to the days when good romantic movies ended with dance competitions and confessions of love everlasting. Y’know, before the indie hipsters took it over, the self-conscious arty bastards.

Bradley Cooper stars as Pat Solitano, Jr., a teacher with bipolar disorder who’s spent the eight months prior to the film’s beginning in a mental asylum, for nearly beating his wife’s lover to death in a fit of rage. Explosions of rage are not an anomaly in their family. His father, Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro in sublime form), is banned from attending any Philadelphia Eagles rugby games because of too many brawls at matches. Now, Pat Sr has lost his job and makes a living from sports betting, which involves him sitting for hours on end in front of the television, transfixed by his many superstitions and obsessions. Pat Jr’s mother Dolores (played by Australian actress Jacki Weaver) has come to terms with the fact that the men in her family are not entirely mentally stable. She tries to watch out for them, does her best to protect them from themselves. Doesn’t always work.

After getting out of the asylum, Pat is obsessed with getting back with his wife Nikki. He starts reading books that Nikki teaches in her high school, he starts a workout regimen, he starts going to therapy sessions with his court-ordered shrink Cliff Patel (Anupam Kher in a restrained tasteful performance). During the course of this self-improvement odyssey, he meets a mysterious, attractive woman Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence), his best friend’s sister-in-law. Tiffany has problems of her own. After her policeman husband Tommy died, she had sex with eleven people in her office and subsequently got fired. Tiffany and Pat share an electric chemistry the likes of which I have rarely seen. They have a scene in a diner where they discuss a sexual fantasy involving an older woman, which had my jaw on the floor. A romcom makes or breaks on the strength of its lead pair, and on that criterion, SLP ranks alongside the classics of the genre like ANNIE HALL and WHEN HARRY MET SALLY….

David O. Russell’s approach to all the crazy in the movie’s screenplay is to be crazy himself. Many of the scenes in the Solitano house are filled with people all talking simultaneously and Russell uses a very uncoventional shooting style to accommodate them all. He speeds up some frames, the edits come fast and hard, basically just letting the camera go where it will. There’s a shot in the film near the end when Pat and Tiffany kiss and the camera zooms back, rather than zooming in as if often done during climactic moments of romantic catharsis. I have seen shots like this before, even in another Bradley Cooper film LIMITLESS (2011), but I never have any idea how it’s achieved. The effect, needless to say, is breathtaking.

The acting in the film is top-notch. Bradley Cooper improves with every film he does, laying in this film a firm claim to be Hollywood’s biggest young star. Pat’s approach to the sharp uncomfortable edges of life is to pretend that they are insignificant and that life always turns out for the best. He is so enamoured of the idea of silver linings that he cannot accept that sometimes they just don’t exist. Cooper’s performance is one of quiet desperation, emotional vulnerability and a volatility that often comes to the fore when he hears Stevie Wonder’s My Cherie Amour. As for Jennifer Lawrence, I need to get something off my chest. Oooooh mama. She plays Tiffany as a seductive goth who, despite being nearly as fucked up as Pat, is more comfortable with who she is. At just twenty-two, she looks much older and shows incredible promise. I was amazed by her gutsy turn in WINTER’S BONE and she continues her fluent form here too. Robert DeNiro stuns as an obsessive-compulsive father who struggles to realise that his son is more like him than he’d like. This is one of his best performances in a long time and shows all of the range and ability of this legend of the silver screen. Jacki Weaver too is effective as Dolores Solitano, the glue that holds the family together.

 SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the feel-good movie of 2012, a sweet, funny, insightful journey into the mysteries of love and the craziness that follows. Must-watch for any fans of the romcom genre. 8.5/10.