Silver Linings Playbook (2012) Review

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Directed by David O Russell

Starring:
Bradley Cooper
Jennifer Lawrence
Robert De Niro
Jacki Weaver
Anupam Kher
Chris Tucker

Music by Danny Elfman

Running time: 122 minutes

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
Cooper plays Patrizio “Pat” Solitano, a man with bipolar disorder who is released from a psychiatric hospital and moves back in with his parents (De Niro and Weaver). Determined to win back his estranged wife, Pat meets recently widowed Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence). She tells Pat that she will help him get his wife back if he enters a dance competition with her. The two become closer as they train and Pat, his father, and Tiffany examine their relationships with each other as they cope with their issues.

My Quickie Opinion:

I’m determined to finish reviewing every single movie that I watched this year before the 1st of January. After this one, I have only 11 left to do. More about that later… But that means I’m going to make these reviews “quickies”.

I was a tiny bit disappointed with Silver Linings Playbook. It’s one of those where it got a lot of hype when it was out & I was eager to see it but just didn’t manage to while it was in the cinema. I finally saw it a few months ago and… Unfortunately, I just didn’t think it quite lived up to the hype & the Oscar nominations/win.

I think Jennifer Lawrence is a great young actress & I can’t wait to see her in more & more movies. But an Oscar WIN for this? I don’t know… She’s great in it & I liked her character & her character’s relationship with Bradley Cooper but I think this was a case of rewarding someone that Hollywood wants to see become a bigger & bigger star. Of course, I still haven’t seen any of the other nominees that were up against her (other than Naomi Watts in The Impossible) so I suppose I have no right to an opinion – Lawrence’s performance really may have been the very best one. Don’t freak out, people! Jennifer Lawrence is currently one of my favorite actresses – I’m only saying that I doubt this will be her best role in her whole career. I mean, she was even better in Winter’s Bone. Chill, people! Lawrence IS great in Silver Linings Playbook.

The best performance, however, was Bradley Cooper’s so it’s unfortunate that he wasn’t the Oscar winner in this film. I know he was up against very stiff competition, though, so he didn’t really have a chance. I’m not a Bradley Cooper fan. I don’t hate him – I just hadn’t really noticed him in anything he’d been in before this. I’m not a fan of movies like The Hangover so it was good seeing him in a very different sort of “actor-y” role. Yes, I said actor-y. God this review sucks. I’m tired. I really liked Cooper in this. Let’s move on.

The story itself was decent. Who doesn’t love a movie full of dysfunctional people? Although I just praised Cooper & Lawrence, a lot of the credit also goes to the script (or book, I guess) for creating these memorable characters. Robert De Niro was also very good as Cooper’s equally messed-up father. I prefer De Niro in these sort of roles.

Lawrence, Cooper & De Niro and their relationships with each other were definitely the highlights of the film.The rest of the film, sadly, has already started to fade from my mind three months later. So, yeah – Sorry this isn’t a very in depth review! The main other thing I remember, other than the dance competition which was indeed fun, was lots of football talk. Football football football. Ugh – I hate football! And I didn’t really connect much with any other characters in this beyond the three I’ve mentioned.

Summary:

Silver Linings Playbook is a decent film with some memorable characters, a good mix of drama & laughs, and very good performances from the lead actors. However, I don’t exactly think it’s an all-time classic that’s up there with some of the other Best Picture nominees in Oscar’s history.

My Rating: 7/10

A Note From Me:

I hope you enjoyed that sucky quickie review. 🙂 These are the 11 movies I have left to write about – Feel free to put in the comments which movie you’d like to see a sucky quickie review for next. I’ll try to get to all of them!

Shame
Pitch Perfect
Nowhere Boy
Vanishing Point
The Pink Panther (1964)
Fun Size
All Good Things
Sound Of My Voice
Man On A Ledge
The Iron Giant
Big

I’d also like to say I’m sorry for not visiting many blogs in the past month or so. Things have been very hectic & I’m just not finding the time to keep up with reading everyone’s blogs. I’m curious – How do the rest of you keep up? I don’t find the Reader all that easy plus, when you’re a good week or two behind, it’s too much to go through that way. I also don’t want e-mails – they would pile up and it would take me weeks to read them all. I feel like I need to quit my job so I can blog full-time! 😉