by Takis Garis (@takisgaris)
Episode 4 - Pure...Silver!
> SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (8/10)
The progress the eccentrically talented David O. Russell keeps making film after film really impresses me. With The Fighter he proved awfully a lot in regard to deep characterization, physicality and thoughtfulness, pushing his story to rigorously happy endings through dire straits. The Fighter was a sports drama, a mistreated genre which he restored in our eyes, avoiding clichés for the vast majority of its running time (this argument is a keeper for this present review). The fearless New Yorker enhances his successful streak with Silver Linings Playbook, a redemptive rom com, which marks a career change for the king of raunchy buffoonery (The Hangover), the hunky Bradley Cooper. Furthermore, it celebrated the total recall of the formerly best screen actor alive, Robert De Niro himself, after countless years of pay check movie appearances. They play together as father & son, Pat Sr and Pat Jr. Same names, same psychological issues with slight differences (father has OCD but gets away with it without treatment, son becomes bi-polar, triggered by the scene that basically constitutes every husband’s nightmare, catching his wife with a lover in the shower-loses control-beats the crap out of lover-loses wife, job, ends up in a mental institution for 8 months, gets out on a plea bargain and a restraining order.
The progress the eccentrically talented David O. Russell keeps making film after film really impresses me. With The Fighter he proved awfully a lot in regard to deep characterization, physicality and thoughtfulness, pushing his story to rigorously happy endings through dire straits. The Fighter was a sports drama, a mistreated genre which he restored in our eyes, avoiding clichés for the vast majority of its running time (this argument is a keeper for this present review). The fearless New Yorker enhances his successful streak with Silver Linings Playbook, a redemptive rom com, which marks a career change for the king of raunchy buffoonery (The Hangover), the hunky Bradley Cooper. Furthermore, it celebrated the total recall of the formerly best screen actor alive, Robert De Niro himself, after countless years of pay check movie appearances. They play together as father & son, Pat Sr and Pat Jr. Same names, same psychological issues with slight differences (father has OCD but gets away with it without treatment, son becomes bi-polar, triggered by the scene that basically constitutes every husband’s nightmare, catching his wife with a lover in the shower-loses control-beats the crap out of lover-loses wife, job, ends up in a mental institution for 8 months, gets out on a plea bargain and a restraining order.
In the exact same way her character, named Tiffany, is set on a mission to save Pat Jr, who is obsessed about reuniting with his cheating spouse, despite Tiffany herself being a depressed, fixated with sex, raged widow, Jennifer Lawrence is the Silver Linings epiphany and salvation. Clearly, her magnetic, luscious, brainy, in-control turn makes her legitimately the frontrunner in the leading female performance category this year. She got game, she got the dancing moves to save Pat from his accelerated descend in his unresolved state of mind which more than frequently results into outbursts of violence. Two manic depressed people make one happy couple? Love conquers all, isn’t that what they say? Well, this is the one romantic comedy that not only everybody should see, but also should serve as a paradigm for film makers in terms of the right comic tempo, the soul bearing lines that don’t need any raunchiness to justify their truthful emotion and the variety of shots that leave breathing space for reflection after sporadic sets of cuts at the speed of light. The film would be nearly perfect if only it could restrain itself from reaching total crowd pleaser status during its last 30 minutes or so. The super happy endings are naturally welcome however very randomly ring true. How else may Cooper’s sudden “total cure” be construed as? Russell is a natural born optimist, still a maestro of great song choices for his films and after The Master’s artistic triumph and marching to big Oscar glory (despite the Cassandras) I can imagine the smile on Harvey Weinstein’s face, for pulling off a one-two punch with this one. Add Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained that is at the end of pipeline and there you’ll have the 3/3 in 2012’s Best Picture race.
gaRis
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