[rating:4.5/5]
I was told that the opening film for the Savannah Film Festival was a romantic comedy. So going in, my arms were crossed and my mood was set to cynical. But calling “Silver Linings Playbook” a rom-com is like calling “The Dark Knight” an action flick. There is both romance and comedy, sure, but the script is intelligent enough to handle some depth — unafraid to tread into darker emotional territory with lead performances that have chemistry down to an exact science.
Adapted from the Matthew Quick novel with the same name, Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano. His mother (Jacki Weaver) checks him out of the loony bin and brings him back to live with her and Pat Solitano Sr. (Robert De Niro), a bookie and avid Philadelphia Eagles fan. It turns out catching your wife in the shower with another man while listening to your wedding song pushes you to the edge.
It’s a little typical; the scene where Pat spills the details of catching his wife isn’t unlike the scene in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” where Darcy recalls a similar incident. Yet, Pat firmly believes that by holding onto a silver lining, his wife’s restraining order can be ditched and the marriage saved. It’s intimate in the nitty gritty sort of way — the moments where the laughter stops are what make this story visceral.
While signing in at the therapist’s office, Pat hears the wedding song. It’s hilarious seeing his deadpan is-this-song-really-playing? rant. But the song is like a gamma ray and turns Pat into the Hulk. Snapping, he rips magazines from a rack and throws an intimidating fit. Pat isn’t bipolar simply for laughs and the mood suddenly shifts from funny to disheartening, from comedy to drama.
The result: resonance uncommon in the genre.
Then along comes Tiffany, played spectacularly by Jennifer Lawrence. She calls Pat out on his flaws, telling him that he “says more inappropriate things than appropriate things.” But interestingly enough, her flaws aren’t so different — she’s a young widow with her fair share of necessary prescriptions. She walks the line between vulnerable and thick-skinned perfectly — her one-liners are soft yet erratic and temperamental.
It’s a great case of on-screen chemistry. Their bantering is like an attempt to out-crazy one another and both hold their own. And the film’s strongest moments are when the Tiffany pops out of nowhere and joins Pat on his morning jogs. It’s a running joke that sets up their relationship in the simplest ways.
Director and writer David O. Russell, who directed 2010’s critically acclaimed “The Fighter,” balances the cute, flirty moments with the emotionally raw scenes well. Several scenes have the camera panning around a conversation. While speaking to his therapist, Pat wrings his fingers together and the camera actually bothers to look down and show you that. It’s an important thing to do, the bipolar characters benefit from the fluidity and, thankfully, never resort to becoming just another offbeat couple.
There was applause when the credits started rolling, and three other bouts of clapping during the film. And between those were audible gasps. The film’s main concern is not to make you laugh but to make you care. It does that by raising the stakes. Happiness and love are at risk here and do more than pack punch lines and pull heartstrings, all are tied together with threads of hilariously inappropriate comments.
