Movie Review: Silver Linings Playbook

The leaves are changing and starting to fall which means one thing to me – Oscar bait is in the air. Week after week now, studios will be finally bringing out the big guns in hope of scoring early recognition of something worthy of the coveted gold Oscar. So far, Argo has been sitting at the top of my list, but it has a chance of being bumped after bearing witness to David O. Russell’s new Silver Linings Playbook.

Adapting Matthew Quick’s novel, Silver Linings Playbook brings a film that rightfully flips the bird at conventional romantic-comedies. Pat (Bradley Cooper) has just been released from a mental institute in Baltimore. His mother Dolores (Jackie Weaver) has talked the courts into letting him move back home under the supervision of herself and his father, Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro). After a quick turnaround back to the institute to return fellow patient Danny (Chris Tucker), Dolores takes Pat home. He’s forced to take in some meds and participate in therapy with Dr. Patel (Anupam Kher), after he was institutionalized for beating up the history teacher with tenure he caught in the shower with his wife Nikki (Brea Bee).

Not everything at home is fine and dandy. While Pat was diagnosed as bi-polar, his father also seems to be dealing with his own OCD. Pat becomes obsessed with winning back his wife and begins by reading everything on her syllabus and showing her that he has changed. After meeting up with his friend Ronny (John Ortiz), whose domineering wife Veronica (Julia Stiles) is good friends with Nikki. Veronica invites Pat over to dinner, along with her sister Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence). Tiffany has just been fired from her job and recently became widowed.

Tiffany and Pat quickly become a little obsessed with each other for very different reasons. All Pat wants is for Tiffany to deliver a letter to Nikki, which she quickly uses against him to blackmail him into being her dance partner for a couples competition. She’s always wanted to compete but her football-obsessed husband never had time. Speaking of football, Pat’s father thinks he has returned his beloved Philadelphia Eagles’ juju and believes Tiffany is throwing it all out of whack because they’ve been spending so much time together on Sundays. But everything is about to change in some unexpected, and some not so, ways.

Article Author: Cinenerd

A Utah based writer, born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT for better and worse. Cinenerd has had an obsession with film his entire life, finally able to write about them since 2009, and the only thing he loves more are his wife and their two wiener dogs (Beatrix Kiddo and Pixar Animation). …

Visit Cinenerd's author page — Cinenerd's Blog